Mothers
by MickTheChick
Summary: Mothers of the nations, the women whose stories would never be told by the history books, but would live on forever in the hearts of their sons and daughters.
1. Linza of Mediolanum Part 1

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 1: Linza of Mediolanum. Part 1.

* * *

Linza didn't know what was going on. She had never…never done _that _before, so why had she not bled for months now. Her stomach was starting to get larger as well. Soon, she would not be able to hide it from her family. Already, she was sure her mother was suspicious, and her elder sister, Ishild as well. Her father, brother, and younger sister, however, seemed oblivious. But for how much longer, Linza was not sure.

She dressed in dark colors to hide the shadow of her belly and layers to hide the curve. When she was dressed, she finally left her room. She shared her room with Ishild and Hailwic, but these last few months, she had pretended to be asleep, waiting for her sisters to finish dressing and leave before doing so herself. Linza slowly crept into downstairs. The restaurant was already filled with hungry customers, and her family was hard at work when she arrived.

Linza's father barked for her to get to work and she quickly hurried behind the counter to help Ishild with the cooking. "Finally awake, I see," Ishild commented as she joined her. Linza meekly averted her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ishild." She said. Ishild smiled at her, however, and gave her stomach a pointed glance. "Don't be." She whispered, and Linza looked at her elder sister with surprise. Suddenly, Hailwic appeared with a tray in hand. Her red-haired little sister was smiling widely, as usual, and practically bouncing.

"Linza, it's your turn to wait tables today!" Hailwic cheerfully reminded her, holding out the tray for Linza to take. Linza did so and switched places with Hailwic so now she instead stood next to Ishild, kneading dough instead. "I had almost forgotten, thank you for reminding me, Hailwic." Linza remarked, smiling softly at her little sister. Hailwic smiled brightly. "No problem. I just don't want either one of getting yelled at by Vatti." She replied.

Linza gave her father a wary glance. He was on the other side of the restaurant, chatting animatedly with a neighbor of theirs, a bronze smith. Their father was usually a kind soul, but when it came to their family's restaurant, he was not one to be trifled with. Their mother was very much the same. After all, their family was on a slippery slope as it was. In a city of Romans, they were Germanics. While those around them bore brown and black hair and olive skin, they were all fair skinned and fair haired with the exception of Hailwic who had fiery hair, with eyes the color of the sky rather than the dirt. They were one of many Germanic families in the city, yes, but one of the few that could be considered esteemed by any means. That was why Linza feared…No, she told herself, holding her chin high as she walked towards a newly arrived customer. She would not think of such things now. There were customers in need of her service at the moment. Her fears could wait.

Several hours passed in the day, and eventually business slowed to a trickle of customers. By mid afternoon, it slowed to the point that Linza and her siblings were allowed to sit and idle at an unused table and enjoy some bread and preserves for a snack while their mother and father counter coins at the counter.

"Did you hear the rumor?" Egino, her elder brother, asked as he ripped a bread roll and half. He shoved one half into his mouth and dipped the other in the preserves, and then he ate that one as well. "What rumor?" Ishild asked curiously with a tilt of her head.

Egino swallowed the bread in his mouth. "Some famous general arrived in the city earlier today from the Capital." He said. "I heard from one of our customer earlier. He came with twenty legionnaires, whole chests of gold and jewels and clothes, two concubines, his sons and daughter, a senator, a household's worth of servants, and a Germanic body guard."

"Wow, he sounds really important!" Hailwic exclaimed. "Where do you think he's staying?" She asked. Ishild and Egino shrugged. "Probably in one of those big fancy houses a few blocks away." Linza said. She had seen them up close before, once when he father went to go talk with the rich man who lived there. She had never forgotten how beautiful it had been. The architecture, the statues, the garden, and the clothes the people who lived in the house wore. She remembered it all.

"Do think we'll see him?" Hailwic asked excitedly. "If he's that close by, maybe he'll come here!" She exclaimed. Egino and Ishild exchanged bemused looks. "Rich people don't come and eat at little family resturants, Hailwic." Egino said. "They eat big fancy meals in their big fancy houses." Ishild added. Hailwic gave a dejected groan.

"But I wanted to meet the big important man." She whined, and Linza had to admit, she felt a bit disappointed as well. It wasn't often that one got to meet big important people, especially ones straight from the heart of the empire. She wondered what the important man was like.

Suddenly, the double doors to the restaurant opened. They all looked up. Hailwic and Linza both gasped quietly, their jaws dropping in awe. Egino stopped chewing the bread he'd stuffed in his mouth. Ishild was the first one on her feet, back stiff as a board. Their parents hurried from behind the counter to greet their new guests.

He wore a legionnaire's uniform with all honors and a sword at his hip. He had a long, flowing red cape. He was an older man, with just a hint of gray at his temples and smile lines forming on his face, but he was very handsome. The man had dark brown hair, olive skin, and golden brown eyes. He had his hands on his hips and was smiling at them all. He exuded an air of magnificence. Beside him was a man who looked about the same age, with long blond hair with a single braid in it and green eyes. He wore Germanic clothes, armor included, a sword and axe at his sides. He wore a long green cape and a serious expression. His green eyes focused on Linza, and she quickly averted her gaze in fear. She still felt his eyes on her, however.

Behind the two men were two women. One with green eyes and light brown hair up in a bun who wore a simple white chiton with a blue shawl around her shoulders; she had a relaxed demeanor about her and calm smile. Next to her was a woman with darker skin, short black hair that didn't quite seem real that was adorned with gold jewelry, who wore a white dress with a lot of gold, blue, and red adornments and patterns. She smiled with half-lidded eyes and looked mysterious to Linza. Each woman clasped a child's hand at her side. The relaxed woman held the hand of an olive-skinned girl with light brown hair and golden eyes not much older than Hailwic, and a little boy who was hardly old enough to walk it looked like. He had dark hair and green eyes and looked very much like the magnificent man in the legionnaire uniform. The mysterious woman held the hand of a dark-skinned boy with half-lidded dark eyes like her who was about the same age as the little boy. He had a shaved head and an eerily calm expression. On either wide of the women and children were two legionnaires, armed with spears and their helms and shields. A man clad in a senator's purple robes stood with them as well.

"Welcome to our eatery, milord." Linza watched her father greet the man in the flowing red cape. "I am Ewald Clodovicus, the owner of this establishment. And this is my wife, Aveza." He continued, gesturing to himself and Linza's mother. "How may we help you today?" Her father asked. The man in the flowing red cape smiled broadly. "I am Aetius Romulus Lupus. This is my body guard and friend, Alvin of Germania." The red caped man said, gesturing to himself and the blond man. He then stepped aside the gestured to the women and children. "These are my concubines, Helena and Kiya, and these are my children, Sophia, Lovino Romulus Lupus, Seti, and…"Aetius trailed off and looked around confusedly. "Where are Francis and Antonio?" He asked. His entourage all looked about and shrugged, except for the little girl, Sophia. "They're playing with some boys outside in the road." She said. Aetius sighed and made a gesture with his hand. One of the legionnaires turned and walked back out of the restaurant. He returned a moment later with two boys hardly six years of age. One was fair-haired and blue eyes, and the other was olive-skinned and green eyes with dark hair. "And these two are Francis and Antonio." Aetius finally finished. The senator stepped forward. "I am Rufinus Octavius Vetus. We have come here in search of someone." The old senator's eyes wandered over to the table Linza and her siblings sat. They all rose to stand like Ishild at that moment.

Linza's father looked between the table and the group of elites confusedly. "What business do you have with my children?" He asked quietly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Just your daughter." The blond man, Alvin said. His eyes never left Linza while he said it, and everyone set of eyes in the room was on her a second later. "Linza is a good girl. If you suspect her of any wrongdoing, you are wrong!" Her mother protested loudly. Aetius smiled down at her and gave a hand wave of dismissal. "She is not in trouble, do not worry. In fact, she has been given a great honor." Linza's family looked at her with surprise and she shrank back a few steps. What was going on? She wondered frantically.

"What sort of honor?" Egino asked bravely, his eyes leaving Linza just long enough to look at Aetius. Before Aetius could answer, his concubines started making their way towards Linza, leading the children towards her as well. Linza's siblings fled the table as they approached so hurriedly Hailwic knocked over a chair. Before Linza could do the same, Helena placed a hand on her shoulder and gently forced her to sit down. Linza looked between Helena and Kiya warily. Kiya smiled and took her hand. "Do not be afraid, child. What's happening to you is strange, yes, but it is great as well. You are bringing something truly amazing into the world." She said in soft, accented voice. Helena nodded in agreement. Linza looked between the women and at the children who now sat around the table, looking at her curiously. "W-What am I bringing into the world?" Linza dared to ask. Helena laid a hand on her belly and ran it over the curve there. Linza's eyes widened with surprise and she heard several gasps around the room, most likely from her family. "An entity that no human can truly understand, but what can be best described as unity. The child you bear will represent a people united under a single banner or idea or feeling of togetherness. He or she will be one of us. Not a human, but more." Linza stared at her blankly.

"What?" She asked. Helena chuckled and pasted the top of her head as if she were child or a dog. "I suppose it is rather hard to explain." She said. "It doesn't matter," Kiya said. "We'll have plenty of time to explain things once we get back to Rome." She said.

Linza stood up so fast her chair fell back. "Rome?!" She shouted, looking at the women with wide eyes. "You are not taking my child away from me! She is only fourteen!" Linza's mother protested, stepping towards Aetius and Alvin threateningly. Father and Egino restrained her. Ishild held a dreadfully confused looking Hailwic. "Big sister?" She whispered uncertainly, looking at Linza with wide blue eyes. "I am sorry, but she simply must!" The elderly senator shouted. "She carries something far too important to the empire to just leave here in the care of some restaurateurs." Mother fell to her knees, hands clasped together as if to pray. "Please, don't. She's just a girl—she shouldn't even be having a child of any sort. How can you just take her from us?!" Mother pleaded. Father glared at the mysterious people. "My wife is right. Linza is only a child." He growled.

Aetius looked at Linza with a smile then. "So your name is Linza then. Alvin, that name means "kind", correct?" He asked the man beside him. The blond's eyes finally left her for a brief moment as he looked over at his friend. "It means "tender" or "soft". Though some might say "weak" as well." He replied in a gruff, heavily accented voice. He had the same accent as Linza's grandfather, who came to Mediolanum as a foreigner almost a hundred years ago. He had been from the far north, but had come south to start a new life. Alvin must have been from the far north as well. Aetius shrugged. "Nonetheless, it's a pretty name, fitting for the mother of one of my kin." He said.

Linza looked at him with confusion. "Your kin?" She asked. Aetius nodded. "The child you carry is most likely a relative of mine in some way, or perhaps Alvin's here." Aetius replied. Linza trembled with aggravation. She didn't understand any of this. "But how is that possible? I've never—I mean, don't you have to do certain…_things _to have a baby? Then why am I having one? This isn't fair, I've been a good girl all my life. I've always done all my chores, prayed to the gods, and been kind to others, Roman and Germanic alike! I love my family and friends and neighbors, my city and its people! I've never done anything bad. I've been a good Roman citizen, even despite having barbarian blood, so why are you punishing me?!" Linza demanded, tears streaming down her face. The strange people all looked at her sadly. The senator stepped forward, smiling kindly.

"Yes, you have been a good person. An ideal Germanian-Roman. Which is why this is happening to you." Linza looked at him, perplexed. "But…?" She whispered.

"This is no punishment," Alvin said abruptly. "This an award." He said.

"What is _this _anyways?" Linza demanded. All the strange people exchanged looks.

"_This_," Aetius said. "is the birth of a whole new realm in the Roman Empire."

* * *

**A/N: I've had this one in my head for awhile. Decided to write it. Part 2 will be posted before the month is up, then I'll move onto Prussia. **

**Also, here are some explanations. **

**Mediolanum is Milan. **

**The names are weird, I know but here's why. **

**In Rome, nobility had three names. A given name, a clan (immediate family) name, and a name for their house in general. Grandpa Rome's given name is Aetius, his clan name is Romulus, and his house name is Lupus. The reason his clan name isn't Vargas is because my headcanon is that the Italy brothers didn't adopt Vargas as their last name until after Rome died, in which case their Roman names, Lovino Romulus Lupus and Feliciano Romulus Lupus, both became very outdated. **

**The reason the other nations only have one name is because provincial non-Roman citizens only had one name back in the day. Little Egypt gets two names because there, they don't even use surnames, but use their father's names more often than not after their given name. **

**Linza and her family have two names because they are Roman citizens, but they don't have three names because three names indicated nobility, and they're just regular citizens. **

**Linza's full name would Linza Clodovica. Because with girls, for their surname, you replace the 'us' with an 'a'. **

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it. Please review, follow, and check out my other Hetalia stories. **


	2. Linza of Mediolanum Part 2

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 2: Linza of Mediolanum. Part 2.

* * *

Linza sat on her bed, staring at her lap dejectedly. She felt condemned. After the mysterious people—the nations—had informed her family of the whole truth and proven their story through a number of feats, her parents had been all too willing to hand her over. For the greater good of their society, they seemed to rationalize it. But Linza didn't feel that way. Never in her life before had she felt more used, more betrayed. They said what was happening to her was an honor, but she felt more like she was being punished.

She didn't look up from her lap, even when her sisters quietly entered the room. Hailwic wordlessly came and sat with her elder sister and leant her head against Linza's shoulder. Ishild came to kneel before her little sisters and take Linza's hands into her own. "Don't look so sad." Ishild said. "Like Hellas and Aegyptus said, this is a great thing you are doing. You're not just bringing a person into the world, but a whole new national identity." Linza looked up then at her sister, revealing red eyes and a trembling bottom lip. "They're going to take me away." She said with cracked voice. "Away from Vatti, Mutti, you two, Egino, and Mediolanum. All of it." She ran hand over the soft curve of her belly. "Even my baby. They'll take him as well." She sobbed. Hailwic wrapped her arms around her big sister and squeezed her tightly. "No they won't! They can't!" The auburn-haired girl protested. "And if they try, I'll kick 'em, bite 'em, or even kill 'em." Hailwic shouted. Linza and Ishild looked at her with bemused smiles and Linza wiped away her tears with a laugh. "You promise?" She asked, and Hailwic nodded eagerly. Linza reached out and tucked a strand of auburn hair behind Hailwic's ear. "Thank you, little sister." She whispered, and Hailwic smiled brightly at her.

That smile and her little sister's innocent promises helped her sleep that night.

The next morning, for the first time in weeks, Linza rose with her sisters at dawn and dressed alongside them, though it was uncomfortable with Hailwic curiously eyeing her stomach and asking to touch it. When they headed down to the restaurant, customers were already filling the dining hall, eager for breakfast to start their days. Mother called Ishild immediately to join her in the kitchens, while Hailwic grabbed a pitcher of water off the counter and headed over to a table to fill some customers' cups. Linza joined Egino and Father behind the counter. Egino was counting out the change for a customer while their father was loading a tray full of meals to be served around the room to different customers. Linza walked past her father to get the brush and bucket hidden under the counter. Today was her turn to scrub the floors.

"No, Linza." Her father said, grabbing the bucket and brush from her hands when he saw her. Linza looked at him with confusion. "But Vatti, isn't it my turn today?" She asked. Father shook his head. "You won't be working, today. Or tomorrow for that matter. For the good of the baby. Besides, Lady Hellas and Lady Aegyptus are coming to take you shopping for new clothes." He said. Linza looked at him despair. "But, Vatti, I can still work." She protested. "Women work all the time, even while with child. Mutti did!" Father simply shook his head. "This is no ordinary child you carry, Linza. Now go back upstairs and I will call you down when they arrive." He commanded. Linza wanted so badly to argue, to protest, and scream and shout why she shouldn't have to do all this or that she didn't want her life to change, but her voice failed her when she opened her mouth. With a sigh, she shuffled her feet back upstairs to her bedroom to await further humiliation.

* * *

Hellas and Aegyptus came for her with an escort of two legionnaires at around noon, and took her straight to the villa they were staying at. It was only a few blocks away, but it itself took up a block at least. Linza was amazed at it. It reminded her of that home she had been when she was a little girl with her father. If this was what the Roman Empire's holiday home looked like, she wondered what his estate in the capital city looked like.

When she arrived, she was given an audience with Rome himself. He sat on a throne like chair on a platform in a large chamber, framed by two walls, the back opening up into the garden behind him. Beside him stood Germania, at his feet his children clustered. Linza was distantly aware of the fact one day her own child would sit among those children, laughing and playing with them as their brother or sister or perhaps something else. The nations hadn't been clear with her of how their familial relations to one another were defined. Hellas vaguely described her situation as being normal when no female nation was around to directly produce the being that would represent a certain region, though she indicated there was another way of such a being coming into existence, completely without the help of a human or nation mother. She also once referred to someone known as Gaia, but never elaborated on whom she was. Linza didn't ask. In all honest, she was sure she knew any more about the nations, her head would explode.

Rome smiled at her when she entered the chamber.

"Good morning, Linza." He greeted her gladly. "Don't you look lovely this morning? Tell me, do you feel well?" Rome asked. Linza looked at him confusedly.

"Of course. Am I not supposed to?" She asked nervously. Was she supposed to get really sick because of the thing growing inside her? She wondered worriedly. Rome grimaced uncomfortably on his throne. "Hellas? Aegyptus?" He asked.

Hellas and Aegyptus exchanged wry smiles, and Aegyptus laid a hand on Linza's shoulder. "Morning sickness, child. Women tend to lose the contents of their stomachs often when with child. I know I did." She said softly in Linza's ear. Linza felt her stomach churn. "Just in the mornings?" Linza asked. Hellas snorted. "I wish."

"Enough talk about vomiting." Rome said. "Why don't you show Linza to her new wardrobe and help her figure out what fits and what she likes." He said, gesturing to a large doorway. Hellas and Aegyptus bowed. "Of course." They both said and made towards the door. Linza followed them hesitantly, sending a pleading look at Germania as she did. He seemed to be the only one not happy about her current situation. Linza wondered if he felt the same way she did about all this. Like it was a curse rather than a blessing.

* * *

Hellas and Aegyptus spoke as they dressed her with the help of a servant woman. Sadly for Linza, they spoke in languages she didn't understand. How they understood each other, she did not know. All she knew was that it was irritating that they giggled and whispered right before her very eyes and she'd didn't have a clue what about.

"Please speak Latin." She eventually pleaded. Hellas and Aegyptus looked up at her in surprise, as if they had forgotten the person they were dressing wasn't just some doll. Hellas smiled. "Of course. We forgot you were human is all." Human. The word sounded foreign almost to Linza. No one had ever called her a human. They had called her a child, a girl, and even a young woman on occasion, but never simply a human. It was just another reminder that the people she was speaking to weren't people at all. The thought frightened her.

"Will my child be able to do that, too?" She asked quietly. Hellas smiled at her unperturbed. "Without a doubt. It's one of the few abilities we all share." She replied.

"Abilities?" Linza whispered. Aegyptus nodded.

"Semi-immortality, enhanced physical abilities—though some more than others, the ability to travel long distances in short periods of time, the ability to sense others of our kind, and understand each other regardless of the language we speak. Though the same doesn't apply to other nations' peoples." She explained. Linza stared at the woman. That sounded like more than a few to her…

"S-so, he'll be strong?" Linza asked. Hellas and Aegyptus nodded. Linza hoped that that would have made her feel better, but it didn't. It just made the thing growing inside her seem more bizarre. She looked down at her stomach and wondered what the Hades was growing inside her not for the first time. She flinched when Aegyptus laid a hand against the curve.

"Don't be afraid." Aegyptus said. "Even if it isn't human like you, it's still your baby. Some of him will always be you. You will live on for centuries in his heart and soul, in his mannerisms and pastimes, in his eyes and his hair." Aegyptus smiled up at her from where she was on her knees. "Tell me, how do you imagine it?" She asked.

"How I…imagine it?" Linza asked. Hellas laughed. "Surely you've thought about it. Do you think of it as a boy, or a girl? Does she have your long straight blond hair? Does he have your blue eyes? Your mother's nose, your father's chin? Your brother's broad shoulders, your sister's smile?" She asked, her green eyes twinkling. Linza felt her cheeks burn. "I…I don't know." She stammered. Hellas and Aegyptus laughed softly and stood up to their full heights.

"I suppose you'll have time to do so in the future. Now come and look at your self." Hellas said as she and Aegyptus guided her towards a looking glass. Linza braced herself to see herself looking ridiculous in the layers of rich fabrics they had wrapped her in and jewels they hang on her. Instead, she froze at her own reflection.

"I…" She breathed. Hellas and Aegyptus smiled at her. "You look beautiful."

* * *

She returned home that evening in the clothes she had left in. The clothes Hellas and Aegyptus had dressed her in would be packed away for her to wear when…when they took her to the capital. The beautiful clothes didn't make that any less daunting. She was walked home by a legionnaire that Rome had called Balbus. It was near dark and quiet, the only sound filling the city streets coming from instead different buildings, most resturants and brothels, and a few barking dogs in the distance. They were always in the distance, Linza thought vaguely. She couldn't remember actually coming across one of those barking dogs.

"So…" Balbus began when they were halfway back to her family's home. "Are you to marry General Romulus?" He asked. Linza looked at him with a disgusted expression.

"He's old enough to be my father!" She shouted, her face heating up. Balbus flushed as well. "I-I apologize, it's just…what am I supposed to think?" He stammered. Linza scowled at him. "I don't know, but certainly not that!" She said. "Well then why else is he being so nice to you? You're of no higher rank than me, socially. You're just some restaurateurs' daughter. Yet a respected general is going to take you to the capital, and to do what? Have that child?" Balbus said, giving her stomach a pointed look. Linza covered it with her arms. "You're being cruel." She grumbled, scowling at him. Balbus scoffed. "You think I'm being cruel. Wait till you get to Rome." He said, and Linza wanted to ask what he meant, but they had arrived at the front of her family's restaurant.

"This is where I leave you." He said, bowing. Linza bowed as well.

She watched Balbus leave, back in the direction of the villa, and then entered the restaurant. It was packed to the rafters with customers, smelled of wine and her mother's delicious cooking. Linza made a beeline for the kitchens, hoping to grab herself a plate.

"Linza!" A voice called. Linza looked around the restaurant. She recognized that voice. "Petronia!" Linza called out, and suddenly, a girl with long dark hair stood above the crowd, arms high above her head. "Linza!" She shouted with a grin. "Petronia!" Linza cried, Petronia jumped off the table she had been standing on, and the two girls flew across the restaurant towards each other. Linza hugged her friend tightly. "Oh Petronia, I didn't know you were back from Padua." Linza said into her friend's hair. Petronia laughed. "I only got back this morning. I came to see you, but your parents said you were out. With a boy, I wonder?" Petronia asked teasingly as she pulled away from Linza's embrace. "No." Linza protested embarrassedly, causing Petronia to laugh. "You did! You did go to see a boy!" Petronia exclaimed, pulling Linza into another tight hug. She pulled away from her a split second later with wide brown eyes. She looked between them at the soft swell of Linza's stomach. "Apparently for longer than I thought." Petronia said, staring at the bump with wide eyes. Linza laughed nervously.

"Actually, a boy wasn't exactly…involved in my situation." Linza whispered, plastering an uneasy grin onto her face. Her friend stared at her blankly. "Please tell me this isn't Bethlehem all over again." She said. "It isn't, I swear, just…let me explain things." Linza said hurriedly. Petronia sighed. "Fine. But you better have a better excuse than 'God did it' to explain this mess." Linza nodded, took her friend's hand and led her upstairs to her family's apartment.

"Nations are people?" Petronia asked with a blank stare. Linza nodded.

"Including the Roman Empire, Germania, Hellas, Aegyptus, and basically every other nation or regional national identity in the world?" Linza nodded again.

"And they're come here for you, because you are basically an ideal citizen of this region, being a Germanian-Roman citizen, thus making you the optimal candidate to give birth to the nation representing our region?" Linza nodded a third time, this time Petronia joining her. "Yes, yes, it all makes sense now…You are obviously _mad!_" Petronia shouted, standing up on Ishild's bed and pointing at Linza accusingly. Linza stood as well. "I am not, and if you don't believe me, you can come with me to Rome's villa tomorrow and they can show you! Please, Petronia, you have to believe me—if my best friend can't believe any of this and support me, then how can I be expected to wrap my head around my situation?" Petronia looked at her with puckered lips for a long moment before jumping off the bed to stand before Linza with her hands on her hips.

"Fine, fine. Say I do actually believe this…I don't even know what this is, what can I do? These beings are clearly more powerful than any of us if what you say is true. We can't stop them, or this thing from being born. What do you want me to do, Linza?" Petronia asked with grave look on her usually so bright and cheerful face.

"Be there for me." Linza answered, though it sounded more like a plea, even to her own ears. Petronia's gaze softened and her hands dropped from her hips. She opened her arms to her friend, and Linza stepped into them without a second thought.

"The man who walked me home warned me that the capital will be a cruel place, and…I do not wish to be alone there. You've there once before, right?" Linza asked.

"My father is a merchant; of course I have." Petronia replied, running a soothing hand through Linza's hair. Linza took a deep breath.

"Then please come with me." She said.

"Of course." Petronia said.

"And not just you. I want my brother and sisters to come as well, and my parents, too, if possible." Linza continued. "Do you think they'll allow it?" Petronia asked.

"If they don't, then I swear that they will never get their hands on my baby."

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, looks like this one is going to extend into a three-parter. Sorry, but I swear this arc will be over before the month is up. **

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the story so far and will review and follow it, as well as check out my other Hetalia fics. Thanks for reading.**

**See ya later! **


	3. Linza of Mediolanum Part 3

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 3: Linza of Mediolanum. Part 3.

* * *

Linza kissed her mother on both cheeks. They were wet with tears, just like her own. Despite Linza's wishes, her mother, nor her father or elder sister would join her on her journey to Rome. They simply couldn't leave the business alone, and Ishild was set to marry the smith's son within a few months.

At least she had Egino and Hailwic and Petronia, Linza thought as she reluctantly pulled away from her mother's embrace.

They were at the south gate to the city. Linza had never left Mediolanum herself before, but she had come to the gates of the city many times to see off Petronia when her father would take her along with him to travel up and down the peninsula, buying, selling, and trading spices and pottery. Petronia related these long journeys to Linza many times, but now, it was her turn. In a few moments, she would leave the city of her birth for the first time for Rome, where she would give birth to a child that would not be truly hers or even human.

Linza ran a hand over the swell of her belly. Under her fingers, the fine fabric felt foreign, and it probably was. She was wearing some of the new clothes that Rome gave her. She had gotten many stares from her neighbors that morning when she and her family left home to meet Rome and his entourage at the gates. Their whispers made her face flush and hang her head. Petronia and Ishild squeezed her hands to comfort her.

When they had arrived at the gates, an entire caravan was there, ready to start on the long road south to the capital. Rome had greeted her with a smile and a hug, and Hellas and Aegyptus smiled at her. Germania, as usual, greeted her with only a nod of his head from where he stood next to two horses. One was his, one was Rome's. There was a wagon nearby for Linza, the children, her brother, and Hellas and Aegyptus. The children were all already inside it, though the older boys, Francis and Antonio, looked eager to climb out, but Sophie diligently kept her eyes on him.

Rome had told Linza that she should say her goodbyes quickly, as they needed to get on the road soon. Linza did so, painful as it was. First, she hugged her father and kissed his bearded cheek. Her father pressed a kiss to her forehead and when he pulled away, Linza was sure she saw tears brimming in his eyes. She had been shocked; she had never seen her father cry. It made her want to do the same…Next, she embraced Ishild. Her elder sister ran her fingers through her hair as they hugged. It reminded Linza of those nights when they would play with each other's hair, braiding it the way their mother had taught them. Ishild gave her a reassuring smile when they parted. Finally, Linza found herself in her mother's arms. Her mother hugged her the tightest. She always had, ever since Linza was a little girl, her mother's embraces had always bordered on crushing and perhaps even uncomfortable. Her mother was by no means a dainty woman, but she was affectionate, so even when she felt like her back might break, Linza could never say she hated her mother's hugs or ask her to let go. Especially now…

"When you come back, tell your mother about all the wonderful things you saw," Mother whispered when she released Linza from her hold. Linza nodded her head. Her mother bit her lip and reached up to wipe away Linza's tears. "I love you." She said, her voice breaking. A fresh wave of tears hit Linza. "I love you, too." She replied.

Egino took her hand then and started pulling her towards the wagon. Linza tried to hold onto her mother's hand as long as possible, but eventually, the distance between her forced her to let their intertwined fingers slip apart. Linza's hand dropped to her side and she dejectedly climbed into the wagon, followed shortly by Egino. Hailwic wrapped her skinny arms around her waist and buried her face in Linza's shoulder. She was crying as well. Linza looked over at Egino. Like father, his eyes were brimming with tears that Linza knew he would never shed, at least in front of his sisters. Linza leant her head against his shoulder and let her tears fall freely as the wagon started moving.

* * *

Linza watched her little sister play with Rome's children in the tall, yellow grass of the meadow. They were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek. Antonio was it and was trying to find his siblings and new friend amongst the grass. Giggling filled the air and occasionally, when Antonio's back was turned, one of the children's heads would pop up from the grass to make faces at him or loud noises, causing Antonio to whip around, only to find nothing. Hailwic's auburn-haired head popped up the most often.

Egino and Petronia sat beside Linza under a nearby tree. Egino snacked on some beard that he had gotten from the inn their traveling party had stopped at nearby. Petronia was bathing in the sun, just outside the tree's shadow. Linza was sure she was asleep, though.

They had been on the road for nearly a week and would arrive in Rome within a few more. It felt like an eternity to Linza. Traveling made her stomach queasy, and sitting in that wagon for so long made her hind end hurt. This made a part of her actually long for Rome, because maybe there she might start feeling better. Though she knew that was unlikely. Hellas and Aegyptus warned her about all the ailments that came with child-bearing.

Linza stood up. Egino looked at her with a raised eyebrow at her licked his fingers free of crumbs. "Where are you going?" He asked. "Somewhere. I just need to get up and stretch my legs for a bit." Linza answered. She started walking down the dirt path back to the inn, which lay in a cluster of trees not far from the main road. "Be careful." Egino warned her. She nodded her head, but took no particular care to watch her step as she approached the shady area surrounding the inn. She entered the shadows.

"Where is your brother?" Linza jumped at sound of the gruff voice. She looked around frantically, her eyes eventually finding the voice's owner leaning against one of the trees lining the path leading to the inn's front entrance.

"Germania!" She gasped. Linza suddenly became very nervous. Germania scared her. He never smiled, and sometimes she caught him staring at her with that perpetual scowl of his. Linza didn't really believe he would hurt her, but that didn't stop her from being afraid.

"Where is your brother? You shouldn't wander alone." Germania repeated as he stepped away from the tree and towards her. Linza looked down at her feet.

"He's watching the children." Linza said.

"And that friend of yours?" Germania asked.

"Petronia? Oh, she's asleep." She paused a moment. "I don't need an escort everywhere. I was just going on a walk." She said. Germania took another step towards her.

"You do. I will accompany you. Where are you going?" Germania said.

Linza wanted to protest, but Germania was such a scary man…

"I was just going to go walk around the inn, maybe go down to the kitchens."

"Are you hungry?" Germania asked. Linza shook her head.

"No, I was actually thinking of doing some cooking."

"Cooking?" Germania asked with a raised eyebrow. Linza nodded, flushing.

"It's…a hobby. Or, at least it is now. It used to be my job."

"At your family's restaurant, I assume. Forgive me, but are your parents from my land?" Germania asked as they rounded the inn. They passed a window to the main hall, and from within, they could hear Rome, Hellas, and Aegyptus laughing along with several humans. Germania's eternal scowl deepened. Linza started playing with her hands.

"No, my grandparents were. My vater's parents. My mutti's grandparents were as well." Linza answered. They came to a door at the back of the building. They entered it to find the kitchens, where an older woman was chopping greens. She looked up at them at the sound of the door shutting.

"Would you like something?" She asked.

"She would like to cook something." Germania answered for Linza. The woman looked confused. "Is she hungry? I could make her some—"

"She would like to cook for herself, thank you." Germania said. The woman looked between Linza and Germania warily.

"Are you sure you can handle yourself?" The woman asked Linza. Linza nodded, and reluctantly, the woman left the kitchens, leaving Linza and Germania alone. Linza started chopping the greens the woman had been at, while Germania leant against a counter with his arms crossed. While she chopped, Linza began humming a tune.

"Who taught you that?" Germania asked suddenly. Linza nearly dropped her knife.

"Uh, well, my mutti. Why do you ask?"

"That's a lullaby of my people. I sing it to my own children." Germania said.

"You have children?" Linza asked in surprise. Germania nodded.

"Are you surprised?" He asked, sounding irritated. Linza started to panic.

"No, no, no! I mean, you just didn't strike me as paternal—no wait, I mean, no one has mentioned you having them, and I just never thought about it! It's not like I thought you were too scary to be a—"

"Linza," Germania said calmly.

"Yes?" Linza croaked.

"Put down the knife." Linza hadn't even realized how tightly she had the knife gripped in her hand. She slowly put it down on the counter, giggling nervous. Germania simply frowned at her.

"You speak with your hands." He said.

"So I have been told." Linza muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Germania asked.

"Nothing. Now back to your children. Do you have as many as Rome?" Linza asked, wishing to change the topic. She took the greens she had chopped up and put them in a pot, she then took a jug of water and poured all its contents into the pot, and set the pot over the open flame of kitchen's hearth. As she did all this, Germania shifted uneasily foot to foot.

"More." He whispered. Linza gaped at him, nearly spilling the pot as she carried it over to the fire.

"What?" She asked. Germania sighed.

"You heard me. Last head count I did, I had twenty-some." He replied gruffly.

"Oh, well…" Linza struggled for something so say. She busied her hands by grabbing some salted meat to cut up. As she picked up her knife again, a thought suddenly struck her and her stomach started churning.

"Were…were all their mothers like me?" She asked hesitantly, avoiding eye contact with Germania as she spoke. She heard him take a deep breath.

"No. There are other ways for my kind to be born. Some come from the land itself, almost out of nowhere, others come from physical unions between our kind. Several of my children came from the land, and a few from women of my kind, though some came from similar situations as yours." Germania explained. It infuriated Linza inside to hear her situation was completely unavoidable, but she held her tongue, and she incensed chopping of the meat became the only indication of her anger.

"Who is looking after your children?" Linza asked.

"I have left many of them in different villages all over my land, under the care of families of humans I trust to care for them. Some are with their mothers, however, and some even live on their own."

"Do you…do you allow the human mothers to keep the children?" Germania was quiet for a long time.

"For a time." He finally answered.

"Will Rome allow me the same luxury?" Germania went silent for far too long. Linza slammed her knife down on the meat in anger and glared at the blond man.

"_Well?_" She seethed. Germania hesitated a moment and opened his mouth to speak.

"Linza!" Petronia's voice called. Germania shut his mouth and a moment later, Petronia stood in the doorway to the kitchens. "There you are. Come on, Hellas and Aegyptus invited us to the bathhouse with them. Let's go." Linza looked down at the meat she had savagely chopped and back over her shoulder at the boiling pot of greens.

"I'm in the middle of cooking," Linza said.

"I'll take care of it. You go." Germania said, and before Linza could protest, Petronia was thanking him and dragging her out the door, giggling.

"So…" Petronia began with a wink as they walked around the inn to the front. "What were you and Germania up to?" Linza felt her cheeks heat up.

"Petronia, you have the filthiest mind, I swear!" Linza shouted. Petronia snorted.

"Clearly you haven't talked to that Francis kid yet."

* * *

Linza tried to speak again to Germania several times on their way to the capital. He was the only one who seemed willing to give her straight answers and not just soothing words of comfort and advice about her condition. Unfortunately, he seemed as intent on avoiding her as she was of getting close to him. By the time they arrived in Rome weeks later, Linza had simply given up.

Rome, the person, announced shortly upon their arrival his intention of holding a party to welcome her to the city, and so Linza's first days in the capital were spent held up in her room, being dressed and undressed over and over like a doll, and being schooled on basic etiquette. The same applied to her siblings and Petronia from what Hellas and Aegyptus told her. Linza found she saw little of the people she actually wished to keep close up until the night of the party, when they were all reunited for a night of fun.

Nobles started arriving at Rome's villa hours before sunset. Rome had her stand beside him as he greeted each and everyone one of them. That night, instead of Hellas or Aegyptus, she was to operate as the hostess of the party, meaning when dinner began, she sat next to Rome, on a dais above the rest of the revelry. Germania, as well as two legionnaires stood behind hers and Rome's chairs.

He was so close…it made Linza anxious. She wished she could be brave and just blurt out all her questions to him, but Rome was right next to her, and she imagined he would interfering. He's pat her cheek or stomach reassuringly, telling her how she glowed and what she was doing was something grand. At times, it worked and made her feel better, but in the long term, Linza would rather have real answers to her questions.

Linza stood from her seat and started climbing down the dais.

"Where are you off to?" Rome asked curiously.

"Oh, to mingle." Linza replied. "Or maybe sit with my siblings for a bit."

Rome nodded understandingly. "By all means, do. Just be careful. Some of our guests can be rather rude, even to pretty girls like you." He said, and Linza nodded, though his words and the wink he added to them made her face heat up. She hurriedly made her way towards where Egino and Petronia were sitting at the other end of the hall.

"I have never eaten so much at once in my life!" Egino exclaimed upon seeing her. Beside him, Petronia rolled her eyes. "One would have never have guessed." She said dryly, poking Egino's stomach. He had always been on the thick side, like their mother. Egino glared at her. "Shut up! I'm just trying to take in the atmosphere."

"Take it in? More like inhale." Petronia jibed.

Linza watched the two bicker back and forth for several moments when she suddenly felt skinny arms wrap around her waist. She twisted around to see who owned them.

"Hailwic! Where have you been?" Linza asked. Her auburn-haired little sister smiled brightly up at her.

"I was playing with Francis and Antonio. You should come and play, too?" Hailwic exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, Hailwic, but I shouldn't." Hailwic tilted her head at her in confusion.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because, well…" Linza couldn't quite think of a reason.

"Because she is not a child like you." A stranger sitting nearby said curtly.

"Yes she is." Hailwic protested. The stranger snorted into his cup of wine.

"She is not. Children do not bear children." He said.

Hailwic looked ready to protest, and seeing this, Linza quickly pulled her away, out onto the veranda attached to the dining hall. It was dark out and overlooked the gardens where several children played.

"That man is wrong." Hailwic said vehemently. "You are so a child. Just like me and Egino. You're only fourteen." She said.

"I can't be a child anymore." Linza told her sister gently. Hailwic crossed her arms defiantly.

"Why not?" She asked.

"Because I can't be a mother and a child at the same time." Linza answered.

"Who says?"

"Well, no one, it's just…it's just how things are."

"Well things aren't fair then!" Hailwic shouted. Linza wanted to protest, to quell her little sister's willfulness with something factual, but she knew, or at least felt, she was right. Things weren't fair.

Linza thought back to the meadow where she watched Hailwic and the other children play. They weren't much younger than her—or at least didn't look it—and acted as such. Months ago, Linza wouldn't have hesitated in joining her sister and her newfound friends in a game. Now…she wished she could…

"Just go play." Linza said. Hailwic huffed and turned on her heel. She raced away from her and Linza headed back inside. She headed towards where Egino and Petronia sat, now speaking to some Roman nobles of a similar age to them.

"So Aetius has got a new one," Linza heard someone whisper as she passed. She felt eyes on her back.

"Most likely. She's the hostess tonight, so that must mean something." Another voice whispered.

"But she's so _young_." Someone else said. Someone scoffed.

"Not that young. I was married when I was her age. Besides, it doesn't appear to have stopped him." The voice scoffed again. "And look how she flaunts it. The moment I saw her, I could see she was bearing a child. They aren't wed; she carries a bastard—like that Lovino boy—she shouldn't act so overconfident."

"Yes, yes. She'll disappear as quickly as that one did in all probability."

"What do you mean 'confident'? Have you looked at the girl? They may have put her in the right clothes, but we can all tell she's just a common girl. Probably got sold into Aetius' bed; he's such a romantic, he's probably putting on this whole show to try and placate the girl before she gets tossed aside."

"Poor dear." A voice cooed, and Linza just couldn't take it. She took off running out of the hall. She ran and ran and ran until she found herself in the gardens. She could hear children laughing and saw them too, but paid no attention to them. She ripped out the earrings Aegyptus had given her and tossed them aside, she threw away the wrap Hellas had put around her shoulders, and she freed her hair of the ties her maids had put it in earlier that evening, letting it fall freely down her back. Tears streaming down her face, she found a rock to sit on in the corner of the garden, near a tall wall. She sat there and sobbed into her hands, cursing the nobles under her breath.

"Are you alright?" Linza looked up to see Germania standing nearby. She furiously wiped away her tears.

"What do you want?" She snapped. Germania approached her, unperturbed by her tone.

"Rome sent me after you. Now, are you alright?" He repeated. Linza sighed.

"Yes. Now will you go?"

"Not until you tell me what's wrong." Germania said, crouching down before her. Linza tried to look away from his hard green eyes, but he took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him.

"Tell me." He said. Linza bit her lip. "Tell me." Germania said again, more forcefully.

"The nobles…I heard them talking behind my back…" Linza whispered. Germania released her chin with a sigh.

"Don't listen to them. They only gossip because they have nothing better to do. By tomorrow, they will forget your very existence and you will forget theirs." Linza shook her head at his words.

"No…no, I won't. They thought I was some whore of Rome's, pitied and belittled me, and, and I don't deserve it. I don't deserve it or anything else that is happening to me!" Linza shouted, rising to her feet right alongside her anger. Germania stood as well.

"I didn't want my childhood ripped away from me. I didn't ask to be ripped away from my family. And I certainly didn't ask to become pregnant! You all call it a gift—I call it a curse; and worse, even though you call it differently, you still deny me my answers!" She growled, shoving at Germania's chest. "Give me that at least! Give me answers!" She shouted, all her frustration suddenly bubbling to the surface like a boiling pot of water. Germania seized her hands and forced them behind her back and turned her around.

"I will if you calm down." He growled in her ear. Shaking with anger still, Linza nodded. Slowly, Germania let her go.

"Answers, now." Linza demanded. Germania breathed deeply through his nose.

"What do you want to know?" He asked.

"Will Rome keep me around after my child is born?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"As long as possible."

"Does…does that mean forever?"

"It means….for as long as you can."

"Don't be vague. Tell me the truth."

"Linza, you do not want to know."

"Yes I do. Now tell me, Germania!"

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you. As I said, there are other ways three ways my kind are born. Two of which…are fatal." Linza stared at Germania, stunned.

"Wha-what?" She croaked. Germania nodded gravely.

"When a nation is born from the land, it is a benign event. But in the cases where actual childbirth occurs, the price the parents must pay is often…costly. A child born of two nations is often a harbinger of that nation's death. This is only an omen, however. Usually, there are centuries between the birth of a nation's child and heir and a nation's death. In the cases of human mothers, however…"

"What happens? Please, please, just tell me!" Linza begged.

"The mother always dies as a result of giving birth. You exchange your life force for the child's. In the weeks following the birth, regardless of whether the birth was easy or hard, or if got sick afterwards, your life will slowly drain from you, making you weaker, frailer, and, in the end, a shell of your former self. Meanwhile, your child will grow exceptionally strong and full of life that was once yours. In the end, you will die."

Linza stared at Germania with utter horror. Her entire body was trembling. One hand came up to touch the swell of her stomach. Parasite. That's all she could think.

"Get out," She whispered, her voice soft and deathly. "Get out, get out, get out." She whispered the mantra as her hand twisted in the fabric covering her stomach. She wanted this parasite out of her, she wanted it out. She wanted it out now!

Before she knew it, she was running. She ran and ran and ran. Linza didn't know where to until she arrived. She stood at the highest balcony in the villa. Linza looked out over the city of Rome and then down at her hand, which gripped a knife. When she had found the knife, she wasn't sure, but she knew what she planned to use it for.

She took it in both hands and raised it high above her head.

"Get out, get out." She whispered and she brought her arms down in one quick motion.

Suddenly, two hands gripped her wrists, holding the knife less than a hair away from her stomach. Linza struggled against the hands, but they were too strong.

"Stop." Germania growled in her ear. He squeezed her wrists so hard, she let out a shriek and dropped the knife. Germania grasped both injured wrists in one hand and used his other arm to hoist her legs up. He held her tightly against his chest as he carried her away from the balcony.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked.

"Somewhere you won't hurt yourself or your baby."

"My baby?" Linza asked. She let out a humorless laugh. "I have no baby. Only a monster in my womb that seeks to kill me."

Germania didn't reply to her, but his grip on her wrists tightened considerably.

* * *

They locked her in her chambers for weeks on end. In that time, only her maids, her siblings, and Petronia came to see her. Rarely did any of them speak to her. From that fact alone, Linza knew that they knew what she had tried to do.

And she couldn't bring herself to care.

They didn't know. Rome would never let any of them know the truth. The truth that Linza was facing a death sentence, and for what? Nothing. She did nothing to deserve this fate. Linza sat in her room, staring out the windows that Rome had had barred after her attempt at throwing herself out one of them. They had also taken away all sharp objects and long fabrics in her room. A sentry came in every hour to check that she somehow hadn't found a way still to take hers and the thing growing inside her's lives. Linza wished they would just let her die.

She was going to anyways, she knew now. There was no way out. But if she had to die, she would prefer it be on her own terms. Let someone else bring their precious northern territory into the world. Surely if it was so important, her killing the thing growing inside her wouldn't change anything. A new one would just start growing inside some other girl.

Linza stared out the barred windows. The sun was setting on yet another day, and she was another day closer to her inevitable death.

There was a knock at her door. She said nothing, and still someone entered.

"Hello," Rome greeted her. Linza ignored him pointedly.

"I came to invite you to join us for dinner tonight." He continued, unperturbed.

"No thank you." Linza said quietly. "Just have my maids bring me my dinner."

"Are you sure? I wound have thought you would like to leave this room after…two months?"

"Three." Linza corrected him.

"Oh, that long, huh? Well then you must certainly be going stir crazy! Please come join us, Linza. Your siblings worry for you, as do I." Rome pleaded.

"They can come join me for dinner in here if my siblings miss my company so much." At that, Rome went silent. Then he gave a huff and marched out of her chambers, slamming the door shut behind her.

Moments later, the door opened again.

"You are a coward." Germania's voice said. Linza turned and glared at him.

"I am not! How would you feel if you were only fourteen and knew you were going to die for no good reason!?" Linza snapped. Germania stomped over to her and yanked her up out of her seat by the window.

"You are. You are a cowardly girl who wants to run away from her fate—you're running away, and in the process, you're hurting those around you. Do you not know how your friend and sister cry over you? Do you not know how your brother refuses to eat because you make if sick with worry? Do you not know how your punishing an innocent child—your child—for something that isn't their fault?!" Germania spat. Linza ripped herself away from him.

"How? How do you expect me to face this bravely? Why should I even?" Linza screamed at him, glaring at him even as tears brimmed in her eyes.

"Because you were chosen for a reason!" Germania shouted. "You were chosen because you were perfect for this. This is something only you could do—and so now you must prove it."

"Or what, Germania? _Or what?_" Linza roared, her tears falling freely.

"Or you will make everything worthless—everything, Linza, even your own death! Do you really want your death to meaningless?" Germania asked.

Linza rubbed her eyes with her fists, hiccupping with tears.

"No, no, but…but I don't want to die at all!" She cried.

Suddenly, she felt arms around her and a chin on her head.

"We all must die, child." She heard Germania whisper. "Some of us like cowards, some of us like brave warriors. Some of us old, some of us young. Some of us for nothing at all…some of us for something great. Life isn't fair and doesn't offer us the choice of when or what will be our end, but the least we get is a choice of how we meet it. How will you face yours?" Germania asked.

Linza wiped her runny nose, and sniffled loudly. She looked down at her stomach. She was still afraid, she still felt cheated, and she still felt angry…

But Germania was right.

"I'll meet mine bravely. I'll try."

* * *

Hailwic ran up to her with a handful of bright, colorful flowers.

"For you!" She cheered. Linza smiled, taking the flowers and smelling them. They smelled amazing. "Thank you, Hailwic." She said. Hailwic smiled and then took off running into the gardens again to play with Rome's children.

Beside her, Linza heard Petronia sneeze.

"I hate flowers." She grumbled. Egino shoved one right under her nose, causing her to sneeze loudly. Petronia glared at Egino as he laughed and sniffed at the flower in his hand himself.

"Well I love them." He said, and Petronia rolled her eyes.

"Congratulations. You're even more of a girl than me then." She said. She and Egino scowled at one another for a full minute before Linza broke the silence by giggling.

"What's so funny?" Egino asked. "Yeah, what?" Petronia seconded.

Linza smothered her giggles in her hand.

"Nothing, nothing, just…you two give me plenty of nieces and nephews, okay?" Linza asked. Egino and Petronia balked at her before looking at one another with utter disgust.

"Me and Chubs? Are you really that hormonal, Linza?" Petronia asked, reeling back several feet from Egino, having realized their faces had only been inches apart during their whole exchange. Linza smirked at the blush on her face and Egino's.

"I wouldn't be surprised. Hellas said she'll give birth in only few weeks." Egino said. He looked at Linza with a small smirk of his own. "Soon you'll be the one giving me a niece or nephew, little sister, so don't worry about me giving you any just yet. Hey, how about you name the little guy after your dear older brother?" He asked with a grin.

"Or your bestest friend in the whole wide world?" Petronia interjected.

Linza laughed and nodded. "I'll think about." She paused and her smile turned into a frown briefly, causing Egino and Petronia's to do the same. They watched her as her eyes wandered to her stomach. Linza ran a hand over the curve of it. She looked at her brother and friend and smiled, but her eyes were sad.

"Just return the favor, okay? I want your first born daughter to be named Linza Minor."

It took a moment for Egino and Petronia to start laughing off her words.

"Sure, fine, fine." Egino said. "I mean, I certainly won't be having any kids with this witch, but I'll name a daughter after you, I promise." Linza smiled truly then.

"Thank you." She said, and before they could say anything else to her, she was heading back inside the villa.

In the hall in which her room resided, Linza heard someone quickly approach her from behind and felt them lay a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Hellas asked her softly. Linza nodded.

"You're crying your eyes out, child." Hellas said. "Tell me what's the matter."

Linza wiped at her tears, but they just kept coming, refusing to stop, as they often did lately.

"I don't want to die…" She whispered. Hellas hugged her tightly, like most mothers would their children. But not how Linza's mother would. Her hug just wasn't tight enough.

"I know." Hellas said, stroking Linza's hair. Her fingers were too careful of the knots though. Linza buried her face in Hellas' shoulder as a new round of sobbing hit her.

Hellas pulled away and planted a kiss on her forehead, but no beard tickled Linza's skin there.

"It'll be alright, though." Hellas said. Linza looked at Hellas with a trembling bottom lip.

"Can you promise me something?"

"If it is not too great a promise."

"It isn't…I just…Promise me that when I die…you'll return me to my family."

"Of course."

* * *

Linza's water broke days later while she sat in the gardens with the children, a crown of flowers upon her head and smile playing on her lips. For a moment, she had almost forgotten how sad she had been the last few days.

But then cruel reality had stabbed her like a knife with a wet reminder.

It happened so fast. One minute she was happy, the next, all her fears had finally come for her to confront. Her chiton became wet. She let out a scream as a pain started in her abdomen.

Before she knew it, she was in her chambers with Aegyptus holding one hand while Petronia held the other. They whispered supportive words in her ears, even as pain wracked her body on and off for hours to come. Maids came and went, a man arrived saying her could help Hellas deliver the baby. Linza could hardly even concentrate on his words. She was in so much pain. She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out. She cried out something over and over again, but she didn't know what. All she knew was that she was in awful pain.

She labored into the next day to bring the child into the world.

He arrived with a scream even louder than hers, covered in her blood and something gooey and disgusting, the man proudly proclaiming his gender to all in the room. Hellas and the maids cleaned him and swaddled him and laid him on chest within his first few minutes of life. Linza looked at him with wide, panicked eyes. Aegyptus and Petronia released her hands slowly, and slowly Linza reached up to touch the little squalling thing on her chest.

He cried very loudly, his face scrunching up in an ugly fashion, his skin all red, and his fists balled up tightly. Not a thing about him carried a trace of Linza…but his hair carried a trace of her sister, she saw.

She reached up and gently ran a finger over the wisp of auburn hair on her son's head that shone in the sun slipping through the windows much like his young aunt's did when she played in the gardens.

Linza laughed and ran her finger from his hair down to his nose. He had a nose like Ishild's. Linza giggled more as she gently pinched her newborn's soft, cubby cheek. Egino had chubby cheeks as well. Linza took one of the baby's hands and gently unfurled it. He had long little fingers like her and her father. With the help of Petronia, Linza sat up and cradled her son to her chest, giggling madly as she examined him. Suddenly, she adored everything about the little being in her arms who had terrified her not even a day ago. Soon, the baby began to laugh along with his young mother, and his laugh made Linza love him even more.

Hellas had to virtually pry him from her arms to hand to the wet-nurse. Linza protested at first, but then, like a wave, her exhaustion hit her. Aegyptus forced her to lay down and pulled the sheets up to her shoulders.

"Rest." She whispered, and Linza wordlessly obeyed by closing her eyes. She fell asleep almost instantly.

The next day, Linza was shown her baby again and asked what she would like to name him. She chose the name Felicianus at first, but within hours changed her mind. Feliciano suited him much more, she decided. However, her time with Feliciano was short that day. A fresh wave of exhaustion hit her before noon and she found herself too tired to stay awake after lunch.

She didn't awake until the next day.

That day, when Feliciano was brought to her, Egino, Hailwic, and Petronia came as well. Egino and Petronia battled over turns holding the boy, while Hailwic couldn't get over the fact he had the same hair as her. She asked if he would have the same eyes as well, but Egino told her that baby's eyes didn't settle on a color for months.

Linza wondered sadly if she'd live long enough to see her son's eye color.

A week passed, and with each day, Linza grew weaker. She had tried getting out of bed a few days after giving birth to Feliciano, but her legs couldn't hold her weight and she fell. The maids had to help her back into bed. It was then that Linza remembered fully the fact that she would be dead soon.

Just as Germania warned, with each day her son grew stronger, but she herself grew weaker and weaker. A week after Feliciano's birth, she was forbidden visitors by the physicians who said too much excitement could worsen her condition.

Only her maids came, and Hellas or Aegyptus with Feliciano.

Linza liked it when they left her alone with Feliciano for a bit. In was in those moments, when she wasn't being treated like the dying person she was, when Hellas and Aegyptus weren't standing over her bed, an eternal reminder of hers and her child's fate, that Linza could just pretend that she was just another mother with her baby.

Linza looked down at her son in her arms, smiling down at his sleeping face.

The door to her chambers opened and she looked up with a frown, expecting a maid to come and tell her it was time to rest some more and take Feliciano away from her and back to Hellas or Aegyptus or Rome.

Instead it was Germania.

He stood at the foot of her bed awkwardly.

"I came to say my goodbyes." He said. Linza looked down a Feliciano's face, her frown deepening.

"Rather early, don't you think? I'm not gasping for air like a fish yet." She said.

"I am leaving Rome." Linza looked up at him with surprise. "The city." He clarified.

"I have not seen my children in over a year, or my people for that matter. I have to go back. In any case, I will gone by the time….by the time you pass. So I thought it would be…polite to say goodbye properly before leaving."

"Oh," Linza breathed. "Thank you, I suppose."

"Yes, well," Germania cleared his throat. "Goodbye. It has…been a pleasure." He said.

"Um, likewise." Linza replied. "And…and thank you…for everything."

"You're…you're welcome." Germania replied, and he was gone as quickly as he came. Linza spent the next few moments wondering what to do next.

Her condition worsened some days later. To the point that no one but the physician and maids, and those deemed allowed to be Rome, were allowed in her chambers. Not even Feliciano was allowed in her presence in those days.

Everyday, Linza felt weaker and weaker. Even the task of breathing began laborious for her lungs.

The day Rome allowed Egino, Hailwic, and Petronia into her chambers, she knew her last day was just around the corner. They were escorted into her chambers by the maids and sat around her bed, trying to hold back their tears. Egino said something about their mother and father that Linza didn't catch. His voice sounded so faraway. Petronia said some things as well, and laughed breathlessly and forced smiles. Linza could only blink at her, wishing she could hear her clever words. Hailwic was the first to start openly crying and Linza didn't need to hear to know her sister was begging for her to stay alive. She wished she could hold her little sister, stroke her auburn hair, and say it would all be alright. She couldn't though; thankfully, Egino could, and Egino did. If she could have smiled at her brother then, she would have.

They hugged her limp body one at a time before leaving. Linza watched them go, wishing she could say something meaningful to them. But even if she could, she didn't think she could conjure up the right words.

That night, Linza fought her hardest to say awake. She managed to do so for many hours. From the time the moon rose and the stars appeared, to when the morning light first began to appear. But as that first bit of sun started peeking over the walls that surrounded the villa, Linza's eyes fell shut one final time and she simply couldn't summon the will to open them again. Everything went dark and she felt herself slip away in unconsciousness.

She knew she would never awake again.

* * *

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed this story. Sorry for the uneven chapters, I may go back and edit the first two into one. Make this a two parter and instead of a three parter. **

**Anyways, Prussia's mother is next. **

**Please review, follow, and check out my other stories. And suggest other nation's mothers you'd like to see if you want. **

**I hope you enjoyed this. See ya in a few weeks! **


	4. Migla of Ancient Baltia Part 1

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 4: Migla of Ancient Baltia. Part 1

* * *

Germania found her sitting on the sea shore, just as the villagers had told him he would. Baltia was crouching down in the water, running her hand over its surface, creating ripples. At her hip, she held a basket. No doubt, she was searching for amber. Germania approached her quietly and stepped into the water to stand before her. It came up to his knees almost and past Baltia's, coming up thigh at least half way. Baltia looked up from where she had been intently looking down at the water. She smiled that kind, gentle smile of hers that Germania had known well since childhood.

"Germania, how good to see you," She said, pushing a stray lock of brown hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. She then tried to adjust her headpiece one handedly, but only managed to cause the fabric to become more crooked on her head. "What brings you to my home today?" She asked as she tried even harder to fix the pesky cloth. Her smile never faltered.

"I came to talk to you about Rome. Lately you've been trading with him, yes?" Baltia nodded her head and gave him a confused look. "Yes, but why does that matter?" She asked.

Germania crossed his arms across his chest and his stoic face grimaced. "He is not someone I trust. I have heard rumors about what he has done to other of our kind. You should be cautious of him." Germania said. Baltia's smile widened into a grin and she brought her wet hand to her lips and started giggling. Germania gave her a look.

"What is so funny?" He asked. Baltia grinned at him mischievously.

"You're worried about me." She said and then she giggled some more. Germania flushed.

"What's so funny about that?" He demanded in a low voice that barely contained his embarrassment. Baltia ceased her giggling but grinned at him still. She reached up and patted his armored chest lightly.

"Nothing, nothing. It's just why couldn't you just say it? You will never change, I swear." She said laughingly, and before Germania could protest otherwise, she turned and started walking back onto the beach.

"Come, Alvin!" She called when he didn't follow immediately. "I'll make you something to eat before you go!"

With a sigh, Germania marched onto shore and followed after his friend towards the village.

* * *

Germania was surprised to step into Baltia's home and not find her children there, or even a trace of one of them. He looked at Baltia confusedly. She returned the look briefly as she sat her basket down on some furs. Then realization seemed to strike her.

"I've been staying here on my own. My sons are all living in a village farther north, more inland." She said. "That reminds me; how is your lot?" She asked as she added more wood to the fire burning in the center of the small stone hut. She pulled up a stool and sat down and propped up her wet legs and feet near the flames. Germania did the same.

"Scattered about my land, you know that. My eldest children are all living separately, but my youngest I have divided up. Two in one village, three in another. They're never alone unless they want to be, if that's what you're worried about." Germania said. Baltia smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, sorry." She said. "It's just I see so little of you these days, Alvin. You are always so busy. I would never know if something had changed since the last time we saw one another." Baltia continued. Germania looked away and sifted uncomfortably in his seat. Baltia's blue-green eyes narrowed.

"Has something changed?" She asked. Germania crossed his arms and shifted again on the stool. He was scowling at the floor of her hut as if it had done something irritating. Baltia sighed and rested her head in her hands, her elbows balanced on her knees.

"Is it about the Roman Empire?" She ventured. Germania grumbled something.

"Hm?" Baltia hummed, smirking slightly at Germania's rare moment of pettiness.

Baltia had known Germania since they were both just little nations, hardly old enough to stand on their own two feet. They had first met not long after the land gave her life and not long before Germania's mother passed away, leaving him in her stead. That had been hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and just recently they had dawned on a new millennium. Baltia had known Germania for a long time, but even in those countless years, the number of times she had seen him act so silly only amounted to a hand full.

"Yes." Germania finally grumbled. Baltia laughed into her hand.

"Why so touchy?" She asked. "You act as if you're a little boy afraid of admitting to affection of a girl." She said. Suddenly her cheeks went bright red and she grinned broadly at him.

"Do you like that Rome after all!?" She demanded excitedly. Germania glared at her.

"No! Get those vile thoughts out of your head, Migla!" He shouted. Baltia frowned but nodded her head, albeit disappointedly.

"Then why all the fuss?" She asked glumly. Germania huffed.

"I…I've become his bodyguard, okay?" He said through grit teeth. Baltia looked at him with surprise.

"What? Really? But you hate Rome—ever since he called you a barbarian when we were little, remember?" Baltia said. Germania sighed and stood up.

"I know, I know…just…I figured trying to live alongside him would be better than…the alternatives." He said. Germania looked her straight in the eye. "And I'll give the same advice to you. Try and hold Rome at bay, don't just let him take over, but avoid war if you can." He said earnestly. "I don't want to see anything bad happen to you, Migla."

Baltia nodded. "I'll heed your words, Alvin." She promised. Germania let out a relieved sigh, and his scowl relaxed back into his usual stoic mask.

"Then I will take my leave now." He said. Baltia quickly seized his wrist before he could even completely turn away from her.

"Oh no you don't. I said I would make you something to eat before you go, and I most certainly will. Now sit and warm your feet while I throw something together for the two of us." She said sternly—or as sternly as she could sound with her soft, gentle voice. Germania debated protesting for a moment, but nodded his head and sat back down wordlessly. Baltia smiled and went to work on preparing the food.

She made a stew for him. It was mostly made of herbs and vegetables from her garden, with little meat besides a few chucks here and there, but Germania liked it just fine. He was used to Baltia's cooking, so he never expected anything robust. Her meals were usually light, which Germania supposed explained her slight frame.

Baltia was on the tall side for a woman, but she was also very lean. When they were very little, Germania's mother used to call her the stick girl or Germania's stick-y friend teasingly because back then she had been even skinnier. Now at least, she had some muscle to her and wasn't so breakable looking, but she was still thin.

"You should eat more." Germania said as he wiped his chin clean of broth. Baltia looked at him with wide eyes and then down at herself. She pouted at him.

"Oh Germania, don't start!" She whined, putting her hands on her hips. "I eat plenty, so there's no need for you to breathe down my neck about my eating habits. Honestly."

Germania felt his cheeks burn. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sure you eat a lot." He muttered. Baltia narrowed her eyes at him.

"So you're calling me fat then?" She said. "Then what's the big idea telling me to eat more; do you have a thing for large women, is that it?" She questioned.

Germania avoided her gaze, his cheeks feeling as if someone were holding hot irons to them. "No, no! I do not and I did not mean it that way at all!" He growled. He hated it when she did this to him, when she made him feel so embarrassed.

Suddenly, Baltia was laughing. Germania felt her hand on the top of his head, patting it as if he were a dog. She used to do the same thing when they were children and she had been the taller one. She hadn't just done it to him either: she did it to anyone she found amusing or to anyone smaller than her she wished to praise or show affection to. It was an odd gesture, Germania had always thought, but he just chalked it up as one of her many eccentric behaviors.

"I know, Alvin, I know. You are just so easy to tease sometimes I can't help it!" She laughed, and then Germania found her arms around his neck and her chin resting on his shoulder as she hugged him tight while kneeling between his legs. Germania's grip on the bowl now trapped between his body and Baltia's grew incredibly tight. "Thank you for worrying about me." Baltia said softly in his ear. "I appreciate it so very much."

Germania couldn't muster a response. He felt feverish all of a sudden. He struggled to control his breathing, lest Baltia hear and tease him more for it. Why did she have to get so close, he wondered agitatedly as he waited for her to pull away, which seemed to be taking eternity. Her long brown hair, now free completely of her headpiece, was getting in his face, tickling his nose. Germania tried very hard not to notice she smelled like honey. Baltia's ornamental jewelry of bronze bracelets and rings adorned with amber were cold against the bare skin of his neck, contrasting greatly against the burning he felt there from his blush. Worst of all, Germania had no idea what to do with himself. All he could do was sit there, red-faced and frozen, waiting for her to let go.

When she finally did, she pouted at him once more.

"You didn't hug me back." She said. "How mean of you, Alvin."

Germania looked away embarrassedly. "S-sorry." He muttered under his breath.

Baltia smiled and chuckled at him before standing up and wiping off the front of her skirt. She took his bowl out of Germania's hands and set aside with her own, and then held out a hand to Germania. "Come, let's go for a walk before you leave." She said. Germania took her hand wordlessly, feeling his flush dissipate and allowed her to lead him out of the hut and down a path into the nearby woods surround the village.

* * *

It was dark in the woods, it being so close to sunset. Germania worried that if he didn't leave soon, he would have to either risk journeying home in the night, when wolves were about—or perhaps even worse things—or he would have to stay the night with Baltia. He didn't wish to impose himself in such a way.

"I will have to take my leave as soon as we return to your home." Germania said, breaking the peaceful silence. Baltia looked at him with worried eyes.

"But it's so close to night time. You won't make it back home, or to the nearest village of your people, for hours, if not until the next day." She said. Germania shook his head.

"I do not wish to trouble you with my presence any longer." He said. Baltia rolled her eyes.

"You don't trouble me at all, Alvin." She said. She reached up and patted his head. "Stay the night. I don't mind in the least. I'll even send you home with some amber." She grinned at him. "I know how much you love amber."

Germania looked away embarrassedly. "Stop teasing, Migla." He grumbled.

Baltia hummed in thought for a moment. "Hm, no." She said simply and sassily, and before Germania could say anything in reply, Baltia skipped a few paces ahead of him, laughing. Germania gave her a look. She twirled around to face him, smirking and eyes twinkling.

Germania knew what she was doing.

"Migla, no." He said, narrowing his eyes at her. "I am not playing this game."

Baltia's smirk became a grin.

"Whatever do you mean, Alvin?" She asked innocently, batting her eyes.

"You know what I mean." Germania said. Baltia giggled and clasped her hands behind her back. She took a single step towards him, and Germania took a step back.

"No, Migla." He said. Baltia took another deliberate step. Germania crossed his arms and grit his teeth.

"No, Migla." He repeated. Baltia giggled as she took yet another step towards. Germania took two steps back.

"I am serious, Migla!" He shouted. Baltia innocently skipped several steps towards him. Germania hurriedly took several steps backwards, nearly tripping along the way. He found himself backed against a tree, Migla standing mere inches away from him, grinning and giggling.

"Migla…" Germania hissed. Baltia held up a single finger and slowly…gently…poked his nose with it.

"You're it!" She exclaimed, and then she turned on her heel and sprinted off into the brush, laughing. Germania stood there blinking for a moment before letting out an exasperated sigh and taking off after her.

"One game, that's it, Migla! I mean it!" He shouted, his voice echoing through the woods along with Baltia's laugh.

* * *

He watched from under a bush as she stopped at a pond for a drink of water. Baltia knelt next to the pool and cupped some of the cold water in her hands and brought it to her lips, drinking it thirstily. Germania imagined she needed it. For nearly an hour now, she had been on the run from him. The forest was almost complete dark now, as the sun had set behind the hills and only the faintest traces of sunlight lingered in the sky. Germania had lost Baltia not long after he gave chase. Since then, he had been tracking her like he would an animal. He followed her tracks, listened carefully for her footsteps. Finally, he had found a pond where he knew she would eventually come. She would never leave the woods without him, just like he wouldn't leave her; if she got thirsty, which she had, then she would have to come to the pool for a drink instead of going to the well in the village or back to her hut for a sip of wine.

Germania got into position under the bush as she brought a second handful of water to her lips. He burst out of the bush and threw himself at the thin young woman. Baltia let out a screech of surprise and tried to flee, but he wrestled her to the ground. They rolled in the leaves, growling and kicking and pulling for a few moments before Germania got a hold of her wrists and pinned them over her head.

Baltia, breathing heavily, her cheeks red, looked up at him in astonishment.

Germania looked down at her with a rare smirk.

"I win." He panted. Baltia grinned broadly up at him.

"That…you have." She said through labored breaths.

Germania loosened his grip on her wrists. "Good. Then we can get back to the village finally and get some—" Germania froze, suddenly finding Baltia's lips on his.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him closer. She reclined back down on the ground, pulling him down with her. It took a moment for Germania to start to move his lips against her, and it seemed as soon as she did, she chose to pull away.

Baltia smiled up at him. It wasn't mischievous or teasing, but gentle and kind. Her cheeks were as red as his, Germania was sure.

"Alvin," She whispered, and then she pressed her lips to his again. Germania shyly responded.

* * *

**A/N: This one may end up a two parter. **

**I hope you all like my Ancient Baltia OC. Please give me some feedback, because I worry about how others might perceive her.**

**If your curious about her human name, Migla, it's the Old Lithuanian word for 'mist'. Sadly, I could not find any other Ancient Baltic names besides a few other Old Lithuania words and names, and a few Latvian names as well, but they were all mostly guy names. Migla seemed to fit the best. **

**Anyways, the next mother I will do is going to be Native America's mother. That's right. Not Native America, but her mother, aka America and Canada's grandma. **

**I hope you all enjoyed reading this. Please review! **


	5. Migla of Ancient Baltia Part 2

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 5: Migla of Ancient Baltia. Part 2

* * *

Germania left Baltia's village the next morning. She sent him off with a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the head, teasing words, some amber as she promised, and some food to eat later if he got hungry along the way home. Neither one of them spoke of what happened in the forest, mostly because neither one of them saw a reason to. It wasn't the first time they had had a tumble in the dirt or under some furs, after all. So Germania returned the kiss on the cheek Baltia had given him and promised to visit more often.

* * *

"Ah, lovely Baltia," Rome cooed dreamily. Beside him, Germania scowled. "I cannot wait to see her again. It has been almost a year since my last visit. I wonder if she's changed any." Rome looked at Germania, his olive-skinned cheeks flushed. "She's your neighbor, right Germania? What was she like last time you saw her?" Rome asked.

Germania looked away from Rome, focusing on the road ahead, and tried desperately to will the blush off his face. His grip on the reigns of his horse tightened considerably. "She was the same as ever." Germania replied gruffly. Rome gave a whine.

"Are you sure? Not even a new haircut?" Rome said with an audible pout.

"No, Rome." Germania said through grit teeth. A moment of silence passed.

"Why would you want her to change anyways? She's fine the way she is." Germania mumbled. He felt Rome look at him with bewilderment.

"Well, she's so odd. She sticks out even among the barbarians, with her strange gods and customs, and those peculiar habits of hers." Rome said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Germania gave him a sideways scowl.

"Just because she's strange to you doesn't me she should change." He grumbled.

Rome stared at Germania for a long moment before a huge grin split his features.

"Do you _love _her?" Rome asked, giggling like a maiden. Germania felt his face turn even redder and his eyes went wide.

"No!" Germania protested. He quickly pulled himself together and glared at the Roman, though he unfortunately still felt his cheeks burning. Rome laughed openly at him.

"You do! You love her!" Rome laughed. He looked about ready to fall off his horse. "Oh, Germania, my friend," Rome wheezed. "You really know how to surprise me!"

Germania growled lowly at Rome. "Shut up."

Rome's thunderous laughter dissolved into chuckles. He wiped away a tear of mirth. Briefly, Germania considered replacing that tear with one of pain.

Rome smiled at Germania smugly. "Germania, while it's a relief to see you actually display an emotion besides grumpiness, I think we both know which one of us is more appealing to women. I mean, really, you are most likely nothing but a brother to Baltia, while I am a fine male specimen and a profitable alliance." Rome said. Germania bit his tongue. He wanted so very badly to tell Rome that Baltia did not see him as a brother, that what they did together last time he visited her was not something one did with a sibling, real or not. But Germania was not like Rome…he did not brag about his exploits…so Germania bit his tongue and continued the rest of the ride to Baltia's village in silence, ignoring Rome's poetic waxing about how he was going to woo Baltia as best he could.

* * *

They arrived in the village at noon. All the villagers crowded in its center to greet the caravan of merchants that Rome and Germania had accompanied north. Almost immediately, the trading of goods began. Rome and Germania dismounted their horses and tried them to a wooden post of a house's fence.

"I sense her nearby, but cannot see her." Rome said, looking around. Germania did as well, and true enough, Baltia was nowhere in sight.

"She's probably at home or at the beach." Germania said, and he started in the direction of her hut. Rome followed after him.

They arrived at her hut a few minutes later. Germania opened the door, calling her name, but inside he found nothing but a hearth full of dying embers. Behind him, he heard Rome enter the hut as well.

"Should we go check the sea shore?" Rome asked.

"Probably. If she's not there, we'll just come back here and wait for her."

Germania and Rome turned around and left the hut, shutting the door behind them. They were only a few steps out the door when Baltia appeared from around the corner of one of her neighbor's houses. She carried a basket and was humming to herself. When she saw them, she smiled widely.

"Germania! Rome!" She called and she trotted up to them. Rome grinned broadly and opened his arms to her. "Baltia!" He called back.

Baltia ran right past Rome to stand before Germania. She set her basket at her feet and then engulfed him in a tight hug around his middle. Shyly, Germania returned the embrace. He couldn't help but feel a bit self-satisfied at Rome's baffled face.

Baltia kissed Germania on the cheek before pulling away from him. Her sweet smile disappeared then and was replaced by a glower. Baltia put her hands on her hips and said, "You promised to visit more often, you liar. It's been nearby five months."

Germania made an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry." He said, and then he narrowed his eyes at Rome over Baltia's shoulder. "But blame Rome. He's had me accompanying him all over the place to see his concubines and children." He grumbled. Rome glared at him as if Germania had betrayed him. When Baltia whirled around to face him, however, his scowl was quickly covered up by a nervous smile.

"I'm so sorry for keeping your friend away from you, Baltia." Rome said. "However, it is his job as my bodyguard to accompany me wherever I go, so he shouldn't complain." He added. Germania heard Baltia hum in thought before she turned again to stand sideways in-between him and Rome. She let out a sigh, though a small smile still graced her features while she did it.

"I suppose you're right, Rome. No one is at fault really." She said.

Rome laughed and grinned. "That's right. Now that that's settled, perhaps you and I could discuss some…" Rome's grinned slowly faded as his sentenced trailed off. His eyes wandered down to Baltia's stomach. Following his gaze curiously, Germania looked down at Baltia's middle as well.

His eyes nearly bugged out of his bed.

"B-Baltia…" He choked.

He hadn't noticed at first because of the dark colors Baltia wore, as well as the many layers of clothing they both more due to the cold weather—even Rome wore layers of warm clothing and furs, and even pants despite thinking they were uncivilized—but looking at her from the side, the curve was unmistakable.

Baltia smiled at him innocently. "What, Alvin?" She asked, folding her hands at the top of the curve. Germania narrowed his eyes at her.

"You know what, Migla!" He said lowly. "How could you—why did you not tell me!?"

Baltia gave a confused tilt of her head, though Germania knew it was all an act. "What are you talking about, Alvin?" She asked sweetly.

"Migla, this is not the time for your games!" Germania shouted, growing ever more frustrated by the second.

Rome looked between him and Baltia confusedly, but soon his confusion was slowly overcome by realization.

"W-wait…you two…are…were…um, to-together?" He stammered. Baltia looked at Rome, smiling, and nodded her head. The hands folded at the top of her curved belly slowly slid down it affectionately.

"Yes," Baltia said. "We were together some months ago when he last visited me."

Rome grew pale and pointed at Baltia's stomach with a shaky finger. "And…and you're…" Rome couldn't even finish his sentence.

"Bearing his child." Baltia said simply. Rome fainted in that moment and fell to the ground, pale and twitching. Germania and Baltia stared at him for a long moment before looking at each other.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Germania asked quietly with sad eyes. Baltia smiled apologetically, and reached out and took Germania's hand and laid it on her stomach.

"I suppose I took my joke a tad far." She said. "Surprise."

Germania looked down at her stomach and hesitantly splayed out his fingers. From within, he was sure he felt something move. He swallowed hard.

"Surprise." He repeated, his voice dry and trembling.

* * *

After Rome awoke, and some explaining was done, Rome quickly and awkwardly finished his business with Baltia. They had dinner with Baltia that night and slept on her floor with some spare furs. The next morning, they left with the caravan to move on to another Baltic village to the north and several others to the east before heading back to Rome. Baltia sent them off with some gifts and some food, each with a kiss on the cheek, and a kind, gentle smile.

As they rode away from the village, Rome pouted.

"I can't believe you got to her first." He griped. Germania sighed and rolled his eyes.

"It's not a race, Rome." He said. Rome scowled at him.

"Maybe not, but you could have told me that I was endeavoring to bed your lover. What? Were you waiting for her to shoot me down so you could rub it in my face?" Rome asked.

Germania avoided Rome's eyes, barely containing a small smile. "Maybe."

Rome gave a loud, annoying whine. "You are too mean, Germania!"

Germania snorted. "More like you're too arrogant for your own good."

Rome gave another loud, aggravating whine.

Germania, amazingly, managed to block it out. All he could think about was that behind him, back in that tiny village, Baltia was carrying his child…His grip on the reigns of his horse grew tight and he grit his teeth. He wondered what he should do.

* * *

"You came back." Baltia said with surprise. She set down the basket of amber she had just collected by the door and removed her cloak as well. Sitting beside the warm fire, Germania nodded solemnly. "Of course I did." He said.

Baltia approached him with slow steps. "What about Rome?" She asked. She heard Germania swallow. "He gave me leave to do as I wish as soon as the merchants were done with their business in your land. He carried on south along with the caravan. I stayed behind and came here." Germania said. Baltia came to stand right in front of him, but he did not look up at her. His eyes remained focused on the hands clasped together in his lap.

"Why?" She asked softly.

With shaky hands, Germania touched her stomach. "You know why."

Baltia smiled and cover Germania's hands with her own.

"Thank you, Alvin."

* * *

Germania stayed with her in her home from then on, and he spent his days helping her with her day to day chores. He'd carry her basket for her when she went looking for amber, or even she was simply doing laundry or collecting herbs from her garden. Germania occasionally went hunting with the men of the village and would bring back a large bird or even a small deer for that evening's supper. Baltia would cook his kills over the hearth and serve them up in whatever fashion she appealed to her at the time. Sometimes she made a stew, other times she simply cooked the meat and served it along with some greens or bread. Though as the weeks wore on, Baltia found herself making ever odder meals.

"Is there…is there honey in the soup?" Germania asked with a grimace. Baltia looked at him as she spooned some more soup into her mouth. She swallowed and explained, "I had a craving."

"Yes, but…honey in soup?" Germania said with a frown. Baltia nodded.

"It's so sweet, though. It tastes…odd." Baltia shrugged.

"If you don't like it, don't eat it." She said. Germania looked down at his soup and then at her, and then slowly pushed his bowl away from himself and towards her. Baltia rolled her eyes.

"Don't be such a baby, Alvin. You like sweets. You make those treats from apples all the time. What do you have against honey, hm?" Baltia snapped. Germania gave the soup a look.

"Apple pies are one thing. Honey in rabbit stew is another."

Baltia suddenly felt a rage seize her. She stood up suddenly and put her hands on her hips and glared down at Germania who looked up at her with surprise.

"I said if you don't like it, don't eat it! So stop whining like a little child and suck it up, eat it, or go to bed hungry!" She yelled. Germania gaped at her.

"Baltia, it's just food—"

"Don't just say this is just about the food! You are such a critic, Alvin—always wrinkling your nose or scowling as if nothing can please you! You do it to humans, you do it to animals, you do it to _plants, _and worst of all you do it to _me!_" Baltia's voice broke. Germania watched in horror as tears slowing rolled down her cheeks. Baltia put her face in her hands and started sobbing. Germania stared at her for a long moment, wondering what the Hell he was supposed to do.

Hesitantly, he stood up and walked over to Baltia to wrap his arms around her. Taking the contact as an invitation, Baltia threw her arms around his middle and squeezed him hard. She sobbed into his tunic for several moments and Germania stood her silently as she did, nervously looking around, patiently waiting for Baltia to calm down.

Baltia pulled away eventually, her eyes red and her upper lip covered in snot that she wiped away with the back of her sleeve. She smiled up at him remorsefully.

"I'm sorry," She said. "It must be…" Her cheeks turned pink. "Don't think I'm crazy or anything." She whispered. Germania shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Is…it because of the…child?" Germania said with a cough into his hand. Baltia smiled up at him and reached up to pat his head fondly.

"I don't see what else could cause such a tantrum from me." Her smile became a grin. "He must be a feisty one." She said. Germania gave her a look.

"If he is, he gets it from you." Germania said. Baltia laughed and playfully swatted at his chest as she stepped away from him. She started collecting the bowls.

"There is some bread in that box under the counter." She said. "Eat that for tonight, and in tomorrow I will make something with apples for you."

Germania smiled at her words, unconsciously licking his lips. "Thank you, Migla." He said appreciatively. Baltia looked over her shoulder at him, smirking.

"I knew you liked sweets." She said with a grin. Germania frowned at her. "Baltia…"

Baltia giggled. "Oh lighten up. There's no shame in liking sweet things." She winked at him. "I mean, you like me, right?"

Germania rolled his eyes. "You're rather sour, actually." He mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

* * *

"Spring will be arriving soon." Baltia said absently as they walked through the woods. Her hands smoothed the fabric over her belly affectionately. She smiled to herself. "He's be born when the air is warmer and the flowers are blooming again. I'm glad."

Germania nodded his agreement. "You won't have to worry about him catching a chill in the night. Not for long anyways." He said. Baltia gave him a disappointed look.

"Does everything have to be survival with you? Can't you just think of, I don't know, how nice it will be that our son will be born into a world reborn, and not a dead one?" She said. Germania looked confused.

"I…I suppose that's nice." He said. Baltia rolled her eyes.

"Always the same with you." She muttered under her breath. Germania scowled.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked lowly. Baltia shook her head.

"Nothing…nothing…Just," She grinned wickedly at him. "You'll always be that stick in the mud boy I met so long ago." Germania glared at her, though he felt his face burn red.

"I am not that same boy!" He shouted. Baltia threw back her head and laughed.

"Oh, touchy, touchy, Alvin. Did I hit a sore spot?" She asked teasingly, skipping a few paces ahead and then twirling around to face him, hands on her wide hips. Germania cursed himself for noticing her hips when he was supposed to be irritated with her. He focused on her face, which held mischief-filled eyes and a smirk. Germania felt his stomach sink. He knew what was going to happen next…

"No, Migla." Germania said, turning around to walk back to the village. Baltia giggled behind him. "Oh come on, Alvin. One game before it gets dark." She called.

"One game before it got dark is what got that child in your belly."

"Well there's no worry of you putting another one in me if we play again now!" Baltia said. Germania felt his cheeks grow warmer, if possible. "_No_, Migla." Germania repeated.

"Will you really leave a pregnant woman out in the woods alone?"

"If she's being a pain in my ass: yes!" Germania called in reply. For a moment, Baltia was silent. Then the sounds of crunching snow, snapping twigs reached his ears.

Stubbornly, Germania carried on walking the path back to the village.

He had only taken five steps when he stopped and whirled around and took off running in the direction he sensed Baltia in.

"One game! One game, I swear, Baltia!"

* * *

Germania wrapped his arm around Baltia's waist as he made himself comfortable under the furs of their—her—bed. It was not an easy feet, her stomach having grown a great deal to suit the baby growing inside in recent months. It occurred to Germania that soon she would be giving birth; he wondered if a third child would finally put some meat on her slim frame. He made a mental note to keep that thought to his self…

Baltia draped one arm across his chest and let out a yawn. "The flowers in the garden will be blooming soon…I hope they do before the baby is born. I want some of his first sights and smells to be blue bugles and rues." She whispered tiredly into the dark night air.

"I am sure they will." Germania said quietly, closing his eyes. Slowly, he felt himself drift off to sleep.

"Germania." Baltia's voice suddenly broke the silence.

"Yes?" Germania mumbled sleepily.

"Do you…do you think our other children will like their new sibling?"

Germania opened his eyes and looked down at Baltia in his arms. In the dark, he could only see her outline, but she was stiff in his arms with anxiety.

"Baltia, do not worry about such things. They will not have any good reason to dislike their brother, and if they still kick up a fuss over it, I will bend my own sons over my knee, and you the same for yours. If you consent, of course."

"You have my permission, but I fear a sore bottom will not quell any resentment from your children and my children towards our child."

Germania sighed. "Maybe so, but there's no reason to worry about thing like that now. We will cross that bridge if and when we come to it, Migla. Until then, get some sleep."

"Fine, I'll try and…be less fretful."

"Good. Now good night."

"Good night."

Germania closed his eyes yet again and once again felt sleep's grips on his weary body grow ever stronger by the minute. He felt Baltia relax in his arms as well, and heard her breathing start to even out.

"Germania!" Baltia's voice gasped, her body suddenly going stiff against his. Germania's eyes opened once again.

"What is it?" He asked tiredly.

"I…I think it's time."

* * *

After having alerted the village women to what was going on, Old Lija and her daughter Rugys entered the hut in which Baltia cried out in pain, shooing out Germania in the process. He, nor any other male, was allowed within the hut during the birth, though it seemed like every female in the village was, Germania noticed with some irritation.

One of Baltia's neighbors offered him a bed for that night, but Germania refused and he instead spent the rest of that night sitting outside the front door to Baltia's home, listening to her cry out when pain washed over her and speak to the other women when those bouts of pain had passed. Germania closed his eyes during that time, but he did not sleep.

When the sun rose and everyone else in the village left their homes with exception of those in Baltia's hut, a boy of no older than ten timidly approached Germania.

"Is your wife having her baby?" He asked.

"She's not really my wife." Germania said. "But yes, she is having the baby."

The boy looked between Germania and the door to the hut warily.

"Don't those screams scare you?" He asked. Germania clenched his teeth.

"In a way." He responded.

"What way?" The boy asked.

"And adult way. Now go home." Germania said quickly. The boy huffed and ran off. A minutes later, a man approached Germania, laughing nervously. Germania knew him as Matas, the man who owned the most livestock in the village.

"I am sorry for my son's behavior, Alvin." Matas said. "He's too curious for his own good." From within the house, Baltia gave a loud cry. Matas winced.

"You are a braver man than I. When my wife gave birth to Vilhelmas, I spent the whole day by the sea shore, trying not to feel too guilty." Matas said.

"I have always been there for Migla." Germania said simply. Matas stared at him. "She has always been there for me as well. I won't leave her now." He said.

Matas smiled at him.

"You are a either a brave man, Alvin, or the most romantic one I've ever met."

Germania wasn't quite sure if he was being insulted or not…

* * *

It was long past noon when a newborn's cry pierced the air and the door to the hut finally opened and all the women exited. When they did, looking at their faces, Germania knew something was wrong. Old Lija looked at him sadly, shaking her head. Rugys avoided his eyes completely. The other women whispered conspiratorially. Germania quickly stood up and entered the house.

On her bed laid Baltia, looking absolutely exhausted and holding a small bundle in her arms…and crying. Germania looked on, stunned, as Baltia cried her eyes out as she looked down at the bundle in her arms. They were not tears of joy, Germania knew for certain, but why she cried, he did not know. Germania was greatly confused. The baby had a strong set of lungs by the sound of his cries.

Germania's imagination ran away with him with all the different, horrendous possibilities. Deformations like extra-limbs and eyes, blue skin, or warty skin. Or perhaps all of them rolled into one grotesque being. Germania braced himself for it all as he slowly approached Baltia.

When he stood next to the bed, Baltia looked up at him with red eyes and a runny nose.

"Something's wrong," She said. She pulled the bundle away from her breast and held it out towards him. Germania's eyes went wide. "A curse, or an illness, I don't know." Baltia said. "All I know is that something's wrong. Something is terribly wrong, Alvin."

Germania didn't reply to her words. All he could do was stare at the infant in her arms. The tiny, pale, silver-haired infant.

* * *

**A/N: Screw it. These things are each going to be three-parters from now on unless I say otherwise. **

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review! **


	6. Migla of Ancient Baltia Part 3

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 6: Migla of Ancient Baltia. Part 3

* * *

"Mother's nearby," A little boy with shoulder-length tresses of brown said softly, looking out of a window of the small stone hut to look down the road in the distance. He felt his mother's presence in that direction. It made him smile. "Do you feel her?" He asked, turning to a blond little boy who was stoking the fire. It was a task literally too big for him. The blond little boy struggled to put the fresh log in the fire with his short, chubby arms. The blond boy looked up and nodded. "Yes, but she's with someone else. Do you think it's the Roman Empire? Or maybe Scandia?" The blond boy smiled brightly. "I hope it's Scandia. He brings some of his sons and nephews around to play sometimes." The brown haired boy chuckled. "You sure do like Scandia. Why don't you go and live with him and his sons then?" He asked jokingly, but the blond developed a wistful expression. "If only…" The brown haired boy gave the blond a look. "I was only joking. Don't get any ideas, Eduard. Mother has been good to you, ya know, so you should stay here with me and her and Raivis." The blond pouted, but nodded. "Fine, Toris, I will for now, but when I grow up, I want to be a Nordic." Toris nodded and smiled at Eduard. "Okay, but that's still a long time away." Toris looked back out the window before Eduard could respond. A wide grin blossomed on his face.

"Mother's home!" He exclaimed. Toris scrambled away from the window and out the door, Eduard and Raivis both following after him as quickly as possible. The three boys took off down the beach towards two figures who has emerged from around the bend in the road. One, Toris sensed clearly enough, was his mother. The other, he could feel now that he was getting closer, was Germania, his mother's friend. Toris sped towards his mother as fast as his feet could carry him. In the distance, his mother looked up from her feet. A wide, happy smile split her features. She handed something to Germania, which the blond nation held tentatively, and got to her knees and opened her arms to them.

Toris was the first one to barrel into Baltia, thanks to his head start. Then Eduard, and finally, Raivis toddled into them as well. Their mother showered each one of their faces with kisses as they each wrapped a pair on skinny arms around her torso as tightly as they could. They had not seen her in over a year, and they had missed her dearly. Toris was sure she felt the same, for her blue-green eyes were full of tears.

"My boys, my boys, my sweet, sweet boys," She cooed, taking a long, loving look at each one of their faces. It wasn't as if any of them had aged since she left—none of them had aged past five or six years old in appearance in several years—but Toris imagined any mother would do the same after not having seen her sons in so long, though only Toris was her actual son. Eduard's mother had left him in the north, where he belonged. She was a tribe of nomads, so when her people left, she couldn't take Eduard with her. She had to leave him behind with Baltia. Raivis had come from the land itself. He had no mother or father but the land on which they all walked, whom was the one ancestor that all nations shared.

Toris' mother said that she had come from the land as well, and because of that, in a way, Raivis was her kin. Baltia had once gone as far to say all nations were kin, in some way or another, since we or our ancestors all came from the land. Toris didn't quite understand it himself. It was odd to think of nations in the same way humans did with their families. Who gave birth to whom, who fathered or married or bedded who, or whose blood you shared. Because then everything got confusing to Toris. Like, if his mother and Ravis both came from the land, wouldn't that make them brother and sister, and Raivis his uncle? If Germania's mother came from the land as well, would that make Baltia his aunt? If Toris was really related to every other nation, and every nation was related to each other in turn, wouldn't all their unions with each other and the products of said unions be the abominations often called incest?

Baltia said no, because things were a tad different for them. Their brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers were only whom they chose them to be. Even if they had been born of the same womb or both came from the land, they were only siblings, cousins, and the like if they willed it so. Toris has accepted his mother's words, and so he had decided a long time ago that she was his mother, and Eduard and Ravis were his brothers. Things were much simpler that way.

"I have someone for you to meet." Baltia said when she stood up. Eduard and Toris both looked at Germania and then back at their mother with raised eyebrows. Ravis simply waved cheerfully at Germania, who awkwardly returned the gesture to the small child. "We already know Germania, Mother." Eduard said. Baltia shook her head. "I know, but he's….he's not who I mean." Baltia turned to Germania. "Show them."

Germania got to one knee and held out the bundle in his arms towards the boys. Curiously, Toris, Eduard, and Raivis approached him. As they got closer, Toris finally noticed something peculiar. A third presence. The presence of a nation. He looked down at the bundle and his green eyes went wide.

"He's pale, like his skin has never seen the sun," He whispered to himself, half-caught between surprise and terror. He wondered if the little thing swaddled in the blanket was a demon. Raivis physically trembled at the sight of it, and Eduard bit his lip and looked back at Mother for guidance. She smiled sadly at them.

"Boys, I'd like you to meet your little brother."

* * *

The babe's name was Gilbert, Mother had explained later, and he was their little brother. She had sired him along with Germania. Toris had asked if that meant Germania was part of their family now, but Mother once again told him that their kind chose freely whom their family was. It was up to Toris and his brothers on whether or not they wanted Germania to be in their family, and up to Germania whether or not he agreed to such a relationship.

Toris decided one new family member was enough, so Germania remained only his mother's friend in his eyes.

Toris didn't know how to feel about Gilbert. Mother explained that his strange appearance was because he was sickly. He didn't sound sickly to Toris, the way he wailed at night, but he didn't argue with his Mother's words. Not even when she told them they would be moving to some place else, somewhere safer for Gilbert, where people would not persecute him for his odd looks. So they left the little village where Toris and his brother had made many friends, and Germania escorted them south, to a tiny village close to where his land and Baltia's land met.

Only a dozen people resided in the village. They lived off of the land, growing small crops and hunting the animals around them. They were a private people. They kept to themselves except when interaction was necessary, and left Baltia and her children to themselves, saying nothing for or against her and her children. Their little family came to live in a small stone hut on the outskirts of the village, with a plot of land nearby in a meadow for them to cultivate and a stream on the other side of that meadow for them to fetch water from. Baltia said it was a nice, quaint place to live, and Toris couldn't help but agree. It was peaceful and happy, even with Gilbert's seemingly constant crying.

Germania, when they were settled, left, saying he had to return to Rome. Toris and Eduard watched their mother kiss the blond nation goodbye and became flustered. Their mother saw their blushes and grinned mischievously down at them. "If you can't even watch two people kiss, I can hardly imagine what you're going to do when you yourselves find special someones." She said. Toris and Eduard turned even redder, while Raivis curiously, and somewhat absently, asked what a special someone was. Toris and Eduard ran away screaming with their hands pressed to their ears, faces as red as blood, as their mother started to explain.

* * *

The first time Toris held Gilbert, the babe was almost a year old.

Baltia was at work sewing up Raivis' breeches after having torn with while playing in the woods. It was a hard task with Gilbert perpetually in her lap or at her hip. Toris supposed it was because she worried about her sickly babe, but Baltia rarely ever had Gilbert more than a few feet away from her. For the last year, Toris had rarely seen Gilbert not in their mother's arms or lying in a basket nearby. He would never admit how envious of the babe he was. He thought it might make him seem childish to Mother, and as the eldest of her children, he refused to show such weakness.

Usually, when doing chores that required both hands, Baltia put Gilbert in his basket at her feet or right beside her. Gilbert was having a fit, however. When he had fits, the only way to comfort him was to rock him back and forth for a few minutes, then he hushed up. But rocking a baby and sewing up holes in pants were not tasks to be done at the same time. Baltia quickly grew frustrated.

"Gil, please hush," She whispered to the silver-haired babe. He did not heed her words, and continued wailing, his pale face turning redder and redder. Baltia looked around the room anxiously before her eyes landed on Toris, who had been cutting greens for dinner with a pants-less Raivis. "Toris," She called. Toris looked up. "Yes, Mother?" Baltia gestured with her head to the crying Gilbert. "Do Mother a favor and rock your brother." She said. Toris looked at the babe with trepidation before nodding and timidly approaching her. She put aside her thread and needle to hand Toris his little brother and show him how to properly cradle him.

She smiled encouragingly at Toris before returning to her work. Toris nervously rocked Gilbert, praying the mother goddess to please help him hush his baby brother. He looked down at Gilbert as he cried. It was actually the first time he had bothered taking a closer look at his new brother. He had always kept his distance before, because he was both afraid of hurting the fragile-looking babe and terrified that he was actually some demon in disguise. Now that he looked closer, he didn't see a frail babe or monstrous demon. He saw a baby.

Gilbert looked like Germania. He would even more so if he had been born with blond hair and green eyes instead of silver hair and purplish hues. Toris wondered, however, how much of their mother he had in him.

Suddenly, Gilbert hushed. He ceased his crying and was reduced to sniffling in Toris' arms. For a moment, Toris found his baby brother rather cute.

But the moment was brief. Hardly a minute passed before Baltia took the infant from Toris' arms, thanking him for being helpful. Toris watched as she balanced the babe on her hip and handed Raivis back his pants. Gilbert looked at Toris and smiled a wide baby smile with no teeth and lots of slobber. Toris tried to smile back at his brother, but his jealousy stopped it from being a true one.

He wished he was the one who Mother always doted on.

* * *

Toris watched as the years passed. He watched Gilbert grow and grow, eventually ceasing to grow at about five years old. He watched as Mother never ceased to dote on him, even as her hair began to turn gray and lines started appear on her once smooth, soft skin. He watched Gilbert go from a baby that cried a lot, but smiled just as often, to a wild little boy who drove Mother to insanity and smiled like a mad man while he was doing it.

Toris wondered what sin he and his family had committed to be afflicted with such a terrible child for a little brother.

"Gilbert!" Baltia called, her soft voice taking on an annoyed tone, something very rare. "Gilbert, you get back here right now!" She shouted from the doorway to their new hut. They had recently moved north to a new village, no even smaller than the last. They had arrived not even a day ago, and Gilbert was off exploring his new surroundings despite Mother having forbade him ever going off on his own, especially in such unfamiliar places. "Gilbert, come back here or I will get your father! He's just done the road!" Mother warned. Toris knew it was a bluff, as Germania had left some hours ago and surely wasn't just down the road. He was miles and miles away. Gilbert, however, might not have known that considering he had been gone since before Germania's departure.

In the distance, several twigs snapped and leaves crunched. A head of silver emerged from the forest brush and raced towards the hut, red-faced and fearful. "No, no, no, please, don't, Mother, please!" He rambled, throwing himself at their mother and gripping her skirt with white knuckles. "He said if I disobeyed you again he would tan my hide! Please, Mother, please no!" He pleaded. Baltia smiled down at her youngest before hoisting him up and balancing him on her hip. "Of course not, love." She said before pecking him on the cheek. "Now, let's get you some dinner. You must be starved." Gilbert threw his arms in the air with glee and grinned broadly. "Yay, dinner!" He cheered as Mother carried him inside the hut.

Toris watched as he collected firewood for said dinner nearby. He clutched the sticks to his chest and suddenly became reluctant to go back inside. He wondered if Mother would be so lenient with him if he were to disobey her. If she would kiss his cheeks and balance him on her hip and then make him some stew.

Toris started putting the sticks he had gathered for the fire back on the ground, but stopped halfway.

No. He wouldn't do something so childish and bratty, he decided. He was the eldest, it was his job to be Mother's helper, not just add to the trouble caused by her youngest. Toris started picking up more sticks for the fire and then headed back towards the hut. He put on a smile, though his stomach turned uneasily with spite.

* * *

Mother left them alone for the first time in centuries after moving them to the south western edge of her land. She had some business to attend to in the south eastern part of her land, she had explained to Toris before leaving.

Toris guessed it was something very important and serious, for she could hardly conjure a smile on her face when telling him the news. In order to ease her worries, Toris and Eduard both promised to take very good care of Gilbert and Ravis while she was gone. That seemed to make her happy.

She left in the early morning, giving them each a kiss and a tight hug.

* * *

Gilbert cried and wallowed in self-pity for the first week she was gone. Toris couldn't blame him. The first time he and Eduard had been separated from her, they hadn't done much else themselves. But when Gilbert was done crying for their mother's return, he did not become much better.

Toris wondered how his mother had so much patience for the likes of Gilbert. He was a demanding child. He ran wild and often didn't listen to anything Toris or Eduard said. Gilbert was trouble incarnate, it seemed to Toris. He always was managing to tear his clothes and get covered in mud while playing, make a mess of his dinner, and would pout when he didn't get his way. Toris would find himself chasing after Gilbert at times, whether it was to drag him to his bath or home for dinner or bedtime.

Even worse, Toris was constantly worrying about Gilbert. He was a skinny boy, much like their mother was skinny woman. His skin burnt easily in the sun, and the boy often complained about his eyes being hurt from the light as well. And the villages weren't particularly fond of him either. Toris wondered how Mother was even able to let him out of the hut without worrying to her wits' end about him.

Toris found Gilbert exhausting during the month Mother was gone.

He finally understood where those lines under her eyes came from.

* * *

Mother returned different. Toris noticed it right away.

He smiles were forced and half-hearted. She told them about her trip as if had been a mundane expedition to trade, but Toris couldn't shake the feeling she was lying to them. Eduard agreed. But they both still smile and nodded at her account of her journey and asked the usual questions, like if she met anyone interesting or saw anything amazing. Mother humored them with a few tall tales about giant ogres and winged-serpents.

Toris couldn't help but notice, however, that when Mother embraced each one of them upon their return, she hugged Gilbert the tightest and the longest.

Mother suddenly had them move to the north, the center of her land. She didn't say why. Toris knew that there was no good reason for them to leave their last home. They had been there not a year, and no one had begun to suspect yet that they weren't human. He asked Mother one night why they left. She only said it was dangerous there for Gilbert.

Toris didn't know what that meant, but it made him feel hurt for some reason, and worried, too.

* * *

Germania came to see them not long after.

It should have been a happy occasion, but when Baltia's eyes met Germania's, her smile wasn't happy, or mischievous, but sad. Germania's straight face became a pained and worried frown. He and Baltia embraced in greeting to one another, and Baltia started to sob into Germania's shoulder. Germania looked at Toris and his brothers over Baltia's shoulder. There was pity in his eyes.

That night, Toris pretended to be asleep, and lied awake in hopes of overhearing Germania and Mother discuss what was going on. He did, and he later wished he didn't.

"There is no stopping them." He heard Mother say to Germania. "Soon, they will come and…they'll try and take our son, Alvin." Mother began to cry.

"Migla," Germania whispered, and his voice was greatly pained. "I…"

"You don't have to say it." Mother said. Toris imagined she smiled again sadly then. "I am happy and grateful to have known you as my friend, Alvin, and I do not regret bearing your son."

To Toris' surprise, it was Germania who began crying then.

"Migla," Germania choked.

"Hush," Mother whispered. "If I have to go, let it be protecting one of my children."

Toris fell asleep listening to his mother and Germania's mingled crying.

When he awoke the next day, he couldn't bear to look at Gilbert.

* * *

Germania left the next day, ruffling Gilbert's hair and kissing Baltia. His eyes were so sad, and Mother's smile at him was heartbreaking. They both looked so old in that moment even though both their hair was only dusted with gray and the lines on their faces were actually very deep. They looked ancient. As if they would crumble to dust if the wind blew too hard. One would think, watching the two old friends say goodbye, that they were saying goodbye for the last time.

And that was what Toris feared.

* * *

As the days wore on into months, news came of conquerors from the south came. They were knights, people said. Teutonic Knights of the Catholic Church.

People spoke of the Knights' armor, swords, and their epic battles. Their creeds and deeds and philosophies. Some with admiration, others with fear in their voices, and many with disgust. Toris came to fear the Knights, and the more stories he heard, and the closer the Knights came to his mother's land, the less he could pretend they were just some tall tale made up by travelers, like his mother's stories of ogres and serpents. He prayed to the mother goddess to please drive the Knights away, but she didn't seem to hear.

Mother smiled less and less as the stories of the Knights grew frequent. At the same time, she seemed hold onto Gilbert tighter and tighter. Like when he was a babe, she seemed reluctant to have him ever more than few feet away from her. She often hugged him close and balanced him on her hip. Toris would often avert his eyes from the sight and try and ignore it.

Soon came a time, however, when Mother couldn't lift Gilbert onto her hip. He grew. They all grew. For the first time in centuries.

It was only a few inches and by a few pounds, but it was a noticeable change that made Gilbert and Raivis gleeful, and Eduard slightly proud.

Toris seemed to be the only one to notice how Mother suddenly started walking slower and how she complained of aching joints and being unable to lift baskets of amber or food easily anymore. Toris and Eduard often had to help her.

* * *

One day, news came that the Knights were near the village they resided in. It came suddenly and without any foreshadowing. Last they had all heard, the Knights were miles away to the east. But then, suddenly, they were right on their front doorstep, only a couple miles away, just beyond the ridge in a nearby village.

They had slaughtered all the villagers there, and were sure to do the same in their village. Everyone started packing up and fleeing to the north, including Toris' family.

Mother had them only bring along the essentials: food and blankets and valuables to trade later for more food later on. She put it all in bags and had each of them throw one over their shoulder. They didn't dare take the main road, for fear of meeting the Knights on it. Like many villagers, they instead chose to trek through the woods.

They left before the sun was even halfway up in the sky and walked all day to the North. They made little progress, however, for when night fell and they made camp for the night, they were still close enough to the village to watch the Knights burn it to the ground.

* * *

It was a week later that they reached the next town. They didn't plan to stay long, as Mother said they needed to stay on the move, but the next day, when Mother tried to get up from the bed a kind young couple had leant them for the night, she could not.

"I am…too weak." She said more to herself than them. It was almost as if she was finally accepting a fact. She closed her eyes and went back to sleep, telling her children they would go tomorrow, after she rested.

Dawn broke the next day with the screams of terror of villagers.

Toris jolted awake along with his brother, Mother, and the owners of the hut they stayed in. The man who had kindly let them stay went outside to see what was going on. He came back a minute later with fear in his eyes. He grabbed his young wife and ran back out the door again without a word. Mother didn't need his words to know what was going on; she ordered for her sons to gather their things as she struggled out of the bed to stand. She took Gilbert's hand and started dragging him out the door practically as fast as she could, Toris, Eduard, and Raivis following after her.

Outside, it was chaos.

Huts were burning, horses mounted by men in shining armor galloped through the town, running over those their rider didn't manage to slice down with their bloody blades. Raivis began trembling and crying, Eduard looked so scared that Toris doubted he had any sense but to grab Raivis' hand and the hem of their Mother's tunic to keep from losing her. Toris felt faint.

Mother led them in-between houses, towards the edge of the small town where the woods were. They needed to get to the woods, where at least they might have a chance of hiding. As they headed there, they were forced to endure many heinous sights.

A man burning alive running out of his house, screaming for water, for mercy, for his family, for death. Death finally came in the form of a sword through the back of his skull.

A couple of Knights looting a hut before torching it like the others, laughing all the while.

A woman being raped. She screamed for help, but everyone who could have stopped what was happening to her simply ran past, trying to save their own necks.

Children crying for their parents' dead bodies.

An old man hobbling in the direction of woods, seeking safety like them, only to be trampled by a horseman.

Toris vomited, but he was so afraid to stop running, that he did it while doing so, and it ended up all down the front of his tunic. He couldn't bring himself to care one bit.

By some miracle, they made it into the woods. They tripped over tree roots and were all breathing hard, but Toris couldn't fight the wave of relief that washed over him. He and his family were safe. He felt some ease creep back into his system.

That all went away when he heard a horse galloping and clinking armor behind him.

Toris turned over his shoulder to see a Knight on horseback chasing after them, sword at the ready. Toris heard himself scream for his Mother before he instinctively threw himself out of the horse's path. Mother shouted something he did hear and veered right with Eduard, Raivis, and Gilbert in tow.

Toris had rolled himself under bush somehow, so when the Knight passed him, he didn't see him or slow down in the slightest in his pursuit of his mother.

The Knight was followed by several others.

Toris' heart hurt in his chest. He couldn't breathe. He was afraid to move. He trembled under the bush for several agonizing seconds before crawling out from under it and running the direction his Mother had gone, followed by the Knights.

He caught up quickly, though parts of Toris wished he hadn't.

Toris had heard his Mother scream not too far away, so he got to his belly and crawled under the bushes in the direction of the scream. He found her not ever far away. He looked down the slope of a tiny hilly covered in thorn bushes and dead leaves down at the scene. From under the bush, they could not see Toris, but Toris could see them.

Mother must have tripped, or had been pushed, because she lay on the forest floor, Gilbert clutched in her arms protectively as she glared up at the mounted Knights. Eduard and Raivis were nowhere to be seen, but Toris could sense them nearby. They must have run.

Toris watched and listened as the Knights jeered and taunted his mother below.

They called her a pagan, and said it as if it were something vulgar. They spoke very casually of all the things they could do to her, and those things made Toris' stomach churn. One even—seemingly as part of some sick joke—half dismounted his horse to do one of those things, but stopped when a man who was seemingly the leader of the lot finally spoke up.

"Enough." The man said. "This is no human woman, you fools. We have come all this way for her anyways. Grab the boy." He said. Toris watched as Mother started cursing the Knights and scrambled away with a crying, shaking Gilbert held tightly to her chest. Two Knights dismounted and approached her, swords withdrawn and bloodied already.

Mother tried to run away.

One Knight brought his sword down on her.

Toris had to bite his lip so hard it bled in order to hold back his scream. Gilbert could restrain his. The silver-haired boy wailed and wailed as the Knights wretched him free of Mother's arms. Mother cried and called out. "Gil, Gil, no please, my son!"

A few of the Knights had the nerve to laugh at the sight, but most were solemn as they watched the bleeding Baltia reach out with red hands towards her child as a Knight threw the boy over his shoulder and remounted his horse. Gilbert kicked and screamed harder than he ever had before and reached out towards Mother desperately.

"Let me go, let me go! Mother! Mother, don't let them take me, please! No, no, no! Mother!" Gilbert screamed his little throat raw. Toris forced himself to look away as tears spilled over his eyes at the sight of his little brother's struggle. He covered his ears and tried to block out the screams as well, but he still heard it when a Knight struck his brother so hard that the boy quieted completely.

Toris heard the Knights go away slowly. One by one, each horse trotted off, until finally the forest was dead silent. Toris looked back at his Mother finally, but all he saw were bloodied clothes where he body had once been. His heart lodged itself in his throat.

* * *

**A/N: This was hard to write for me. I cried. **

**I hope you all enjoyed Baltia's story. Sorry that you never got her POV, but I wanted to keep her character kind of mysterious, and the story was more suspenseful from Toris' POV.**

**Please review and I hope you like it. **

**Anyways, next up is going to be Native America's Mother—aka the ancient people who came from across the Land Bridge. **

**Oh, and here's an epilogue. This was going to be in the above, but I decided to separate them since the below pertains more to Toris' story than his mother's. Enjoy.**

* * *

Toris stared at his mother's bloodied clothes for a long time. Until the sun left the sky. Only when the moon rose did finding Eduard and Raivis cross his mind. He swallowed back down his heart and rose to his feet. He needed to find his brothers.

_Brothers…_Toris bit his already blood covered lip to keep from crying.

In that moment, he hated the Knights with every fiber of his being, and he knew that his hate would never go away. But Toris was not a fool, and it was easy to figure out why the Knights had taken his little brother.

He was them. Gilbert was now the representation of everything Toris despised.

In that moment, Toris decided he only had two brothers, Eduard and Raivis.

Things were much simpler that way.


	7. Bonus 1: Hailwic of Mediolanum

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

BONUS #1: Hailwic Clodovica of Mediolanum

* * *

Hailwic entered the kitchen of her childhood home with a bright smile and a basket of linens at her hip. Her sister-in-law, Tanaquil, looked up from the dough she had been kneading and smiled at her. "Morning, Hailwic. What brings you here so early?" She said, wiping her hands clean on her apron. Hailwic sat her basket on linens on a counter and replied, "I was out doing errands for Lady Ceto Sulla. I thought I might pay you and my brother a visit while I was out." Hailwic glanced around the kitchen. "Are Egino and the children in the front?" She asked. Tanaquil nodded as she took her long black hair out of its bun and redid it, seeing as how it was previously falling free and getting into her eyes. "Egino's minding the counter, Vita and Tullia are waiting on customers, and Regulus is _supposed _to be out fetching me some things at the market, but he's probably dallying with his friend Quintus again." Hailwic shook her head. "Oh, Egino's going to give that boy an earful. What about Mutti and Martina?" Tanaquil pointed up at the ceiling. "Upstairs. Your mother has been in bed all day, and Martina volunteered to look after her." Hailwic nodded and looked up at the ceiling sadly.

For the past few years, her mother's health had been declining. For the last few months, it had been rare that she was out of bed. Hailwic knew that her mother was not long for their world, but that didn't make the thought of her wasting away in a cot just above her head, her granddaughter dutifully sitting by her side, any less saddening. It seemed Hailwic would lose yet another family member very soon, however, and since nothing could change that, all Hailwic could do was hope that her brother and his family looked after her mother and made her final days as comfortable as possible.

Hailwic picked her basket of linens back up and balanced it out her hip. "I'll go and say hello to Egino and the children and then go up and see Mutti." She said. Tanaquil nodded her head and went back to kneading the dough, humming a tune softly to her self. Hailwic passed her as she headed out of the kitchen and entered the dining hall of her family's restaurant. Business was slow at that hour, so only a few tables were taken up by eating and chatting customers, so Hailwic found Vita and Tullia idly sitting on the counter, talking, seeing as their customers had been properly waited on. Egino was counting out coins nearby.

Tullia smiled and waved upon seeing her aunt. "Aunt Hailwic!" The thirteen year old greeted her cheerfully, hopping off the counter and throwing her skinny arms around Hailwic's waist. Hail returned the embrace with her free arm. Vita followed her older sister's example and wrapped her arms around Hailwic as well. Hailwic ruffled her black hair affectionately. The two girls pulled away and smiled up at Hailwic brightly. "We haven't seen you in forever." Vita said, and Hailwic chuckled. "It's been a week, Vita. You act as if I've been cooped up in that villa for years." Tullia pouted. "Well, you have. You only come to see us occasionally. What? Do you like those nobles better than us, your own family?" Tullia asked. Hailwic rolled her eyes. "No, I do not." She said. "But I'm a servant of those nobles and it's my job to stay at that villa and, well, serve them. Sadly, it's a job seemingly never done. There's always a dish to washed, a rug to cleaned, a Lady to be dressed, and a baby to be cradled and soothed. Just be clad Lady Ceto Sulla sent me out on errands today." Tullia and Vita pouted still, but nodded at their aunt's words.

Down the counter, Egino laughed. "You are such a hypocrite, sister." He said, shaking his head as he approached his little sister. "You weren't so patient and understanding when you were their age." Hailwic scowled at her older brother. "Neither were you, Egino." She said. "Nor where you so trim, might I add." She said, grinning as she gave his flat stomach a smack. Egino frowned at her as his face turned red. He hated it when others brought up how chubby he had been as a youth. It hadn't been until he was in his twenties that he slimmed down. Hailwic simply smirked up at her brother and stuck her tongue out at him. He returned the gesture very briefly, as his daughters giggled at seeing their father act so childishly.

"I only jest, brother." Hailwic said, giving her brother and quick squeeze of a hug. He chuckled and ruffled her auburn hair. "I know, I know. It's just strange is all. Yesterday, you were a little girl, no taller Vater's hip. Today, you're Ishild's mirror image, all except for your hair." Egino said, and the mention of their father and eldest sister made Hailwic's smile disappear and turn into a sad frown.

Ishild had passed away nearly fifteen years ago, not two years after they lost Linza. The birth of Ishild and her husband's children should have been a happy occasion, and it had been briefly, but a fever quickly overwhelmed Ishild and took her in the night not a week after her twins' birth. Linus and Linza Minor were left motherless. Hailwic and Egino's father had followed his daughters to the grave a year later. A physician said he died from the illness that had swept through their city that year, but Hailwic would always say grief is what took the life out of her father, not some infection.

Hailwic felt her brother give her a one-armed hug. "Eh, don't get so upset. It's been a long time, Hailwic. They're together again, at least." Egino said softly in her ear. Hailwic nodded, but did not cease to frown. "And Mutti will join them soon." She whispered sadly. "_Hailwic_," Egino said warningly, giving Vita and Tullia a cautious glance, but both girls were busy refilling the cups of some customers. Hailwic shook her head. "Sorry, sorry. I just…I'll go up and say hello to Mutti now." She said. Egino gently grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "I wouldn't actually. She's been asleep most of the day, and I wouldn't disturb her. Come back for dinner tonight, though. She'd be glad to see you then, I know." He said. Hailwic gave the stairs leading up to the apartment a longing look before looking back at her brother and nodding. "I'd love to come to dinner." She said.

"Oh," Hailwic said, suddenly remembering. "Regulus still isn't back from the market." She said, hoping to change the topic. Egino sighed. "What will I ever do with that boy?" He grumbled exasperatedly under his breath. Hailwic shrugged. "You could borrow from Vatti's handbook and put him over your knee." She suggested. "He's fourteen." Egino said. "Did that ever stop Vatti?" Egino went silent for a moment before rolling his eyes.

"Tanaquil and I can't leave the restaurant or the girls alone. Could you…?" He trailed off. Hailwic nodded. "I'll go look for him. Any clue as to where he might have ran off to, though?" She asked. "He's either with Quintus near the southern city gates or at the smithy down the street with Linus and Linza Minor." Egino said. "Good luck." He added as Hailwic made towards the door. "I suppose I'll need it." Hailwic replied, eliciting a chuckle from herself and her brother.

* * *

Hailwic headed towards the smithy down the road first. She arrived to find her former brother-in-law, Pius, hammering at some horse shoes while his apprentice Pliny manned the minded the fire, making sure its flames were always high and alive. Pius looked up from his work as she stepped inside the shadowy smithy. He smiled at her softly, the dark hairs of his beard standing up at his dimples. "Hailwic," He greeted her. "What brings you here?" He asked. "Just looking for my nephew. Regulus." She clarified. Pius nodded. "Well, he was here not long ago. He and his friend Quintus asked Linus if he wanted to go to the south gates of the city to watch some soldiers arrive. You know how Regulus loves soldiers." Hailwic did. The boy admired them as if they were Gods. He wanted to be one even, something that worried his mother and father to no end. "I imagine they wouldn't take no for an answer when Linus declined." Hailwic said, referring to how dutiful Linus was when compared to his precocious cousin. Pius nodded his head. "The boy wanted to stay here with me and Pliny and help, but Regulus and Quintus just wouldn't let up and eventually he conceded. His sister tagged along." Hailwic wasn't surprised by that. Linus and Linza Minor were incredibly close and rarely ever apart.

"I suppose I should go to the south gate then." She said. "Thank you for your time, Pius." Hailwic said graciously as she turned to leave the smithy. Pius reached out and touched her shoulder, stopping her. She turned back to him to see Pius looking down at his feet shyly. "You should come visit more often." He said. "The twins love to see you and hear about their mother, and Linza loves to hear about her namesake. And I…well…" Hailwic didn't need to hear the rest. She smiled at Pius and said, "I would love to. The next time I manage to get out of the villa, I'll be sure to stop by for a visit. I'll even bring something for us all to eat. There are many delicious snacks available to the staff at the villa, thanks to Lady Ceto Sulla's generosity. You and the twins would enjoy them, I think." Pius smiled widely. "That would be lovely. Thank you." He said.

With that, Hailwic left the smithy and set out towards the south gate of the city to find her nephew.

* * *

There were many soldiers at the southern gate, just as Pius said there would be, and many civilians as well. Some were merchants looking to sell something to the soldiers, others were swooning girls and wide-eyed children. Hailwic looked at the thick mass of people and groaned. How would she ever find Regulus in that mess? She dreaded the prospect of having to shove her way through the crowd, and circling it would not accomplish much. A bird's eye view might be the best option, Hailwic thought. She found a stack on barrels near the edge of the ground and set down her basket next to them. She then carefully began crawling up the stack.

She had climbed three rows of barrels when a voice from below called, "What're you doing?" It was a sweet and soft child's voice, and when Hailwic looked down, it was indeed a child who was talking to her. He was no more than six years old and dressed similarly to how one of Lady Ceto Sulla's children might have. Hailwic looked around for a nanny or noble woman, some to whom the child's custody may have belonged, but saw nothing but soldiers and lower class civilians. There was, however, a row of expensive looking carriages in the middle of the crowd of soldiers. Hailwic thought that perhaps the child belonged to who ever traveled in such luxury.

"I'm looking for someone." Hailwic called back to the child. "Are you doing the same?" She asked, wondering if perhaps the child had wandered off from their mother or nanny. The boy shook his head. "No, I'm not." Hailwic gave the little boy a raised eyebrow. "You aren't? Then what are you doing?" She asked. The little boy shifted awkwardly, foot to foot. "Well…my brothers told me to stay here and wait for them." He replied. Hailwic looked around for boys that looked as if they might have been the little boys brothers, but saw none nearby. "Where are your brothers now?" Hailwic asked. The little boy shrugged. With a sigh, Hailwic crawled down from the barrels and came to stand over the little boy. She knelt before him.

Up close, Hailwic discovered the little boy had auburn hair much like her own, though it had looked brown from a distance, and golden brown eyes. He also had a peculiar curl that stuck out amongst his mostly straight hair. She wanted to touch it, mostly out of curiosity, but reframed from doing so since the child was clearly the son of someone important considering his state of dress.

"Where did your brothers say they were going?" Hailwic asked. The boy looked away, clearly not knowing. "They only told me to stay put." He replied.

Hailwic frowned. "What's your name, little boy?" She asked. The boy smiled brightly at her then; it made Hailwic feel a sudden sense of familiarity. "Feliciano Romulus Lupus." The boy answered, and Hailwic knew for certain now he was noble, for only nobles had three names. But that thought hardly registered in her mind, for she recognized that name.

Hailwic knew that name. It was the name her sister had given to her son. Though it had happened nearly seventeen years ago, she could remember. She remembered the day the nations came for her sister, she could remember their journey to and the weeks spent in Rome, she could remember the birth of her sister's child, and her sister's death. She remembered all of it.

Hailwic stared at the boy in front of her with shock, realizing quickly who he was.

Her nephew.

She wouldn't have guessed before. It had been such a long time ago, and he had been a baby and shared so little similarity with his mother and the rest of her family. Even looking at him now, Hailwic saw little of her kin in him. Only his hair, so much like her own, gave any hint of their relation. Still, Hailwic felt a strange sense of guilt at not having recognized him.

Feliciano tilted his head confusedly at her as she stared. "Ve, Miss, are you alright?" He asked innocently. Hailwic shook herself and smiled at the boy. "Yes, yes, I…I…" She couldn't come up with a decent explanation, her nerves suddenly too wracked to allow her to think. Instead, she took a deep breath and stood up. She smiled as best she could for Feliciano. Feliciano looked up at her worriedly, however. "Are you sure, miss?" He asked, and Linza nodded. "Fine. Just fine." She said.

Feliciano smiled then, and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but it was then that a legionnaire approached the two of them with fast and deliberate steps. "Step back from the child, Miss." The legionnaire implored. Hailwic did so hastily out of hear of the man, but frowned at him while doing so. "I was only talking to the boy." She said. The legionnaire ignored her as he grabbed Feliciano by the wrist. "Your grandfather is worried sick. Don't you know better than to wander off?" The Legionnaire said harshly. Feliciano pouted. "But Francis and Antonio…" He tried to say. "Enough. Just don't wander off like that. Do you hear me?" The Legionnaire said, softening his tone some. Feliciano nodded guiltily, thoroughly chastised.

The legionnaire finally turned to Hailwic and bowed. "My apologies if the boy was bothering you." He said. Hailwic smiled down at Feliciano. "He was no trouble." She said, and that seemingly lifted the boy's spirits for he smiled slightly up at her. "Well, we must be off now. Afternoon, miss." The Legionnaire said, and then he started off in the direction of the grandiose carriages in the center of the crowd of soldiers and civilians clustered at the gate. In the carriage now, Hailwic saw some familiar faces. The Roman Empire, his sons and Hailwic's old playmates, Francis and Antonio, and that body guard of his, Germania. None of them had aged a day since she was eleven years old.

From a distance, and upon the tips of her toes, Hailwic was able to watch as Feliciano was escorted up the carriage by the Legionnaire. He climbed in eagerly and into Rome's lap. The Empire laughed and ruffled Feliciano's hair fondly and said something to him that made the boy smile brightly. Feliciano pointed in her direction and Rome and Germania both looked then. Hailwic wasn't sure if they actually saw her, but Rome nodded his head and said something to Feliciano that made the boy nod as well. Rome kissed his forehead then and gave him a pat of the back, sending the boy to the other side of the carriage to sit with Antonio and Francis, who moped and pouted, most likely about getting in trouble for leaving Feliciano on his own. Hailwic smiled at the scene that played out before her eyes, sure now that her sister's son resided in a happy home and with people who loved him. That was something that Hailwic was sure Linza would have wanted.

"Aunt Hailwic!" A familiar voice called. Hailwic turned to see her sister Linza waving to her from atop of stack of crate across the square. Hailwic blinked and suddenly it was her niece Linza Minor standing there, not her sister. Hailwic shook herself and waved back. Casting one last glance at Feliciano as the grandiose carriage's horses started pulling it towards the gate and out of the city, Hailwic started across the square towards her niece, off to find her nephew and drag him kicking and screaming to the market and back home to her family's restaurant, and all before Lady Ceto Sulla started wonder where her chamber maid had disappeared to.

* * *

**A/N: So this is kind of filler. I'm having some trouble with the OCs for the next arc, since I don't want them to come out too generic. Anyways, this is just kind of an epilogue if you will to what happened to Linza's family after she died. I hope you liked it, and I'll post the first chapter of the next arc soon, I swear. **

**Please review and follow!**


	8. Pallu of Paleoamerica Part 1

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 8: Pallu of Paleoamerica Part 1

* * *

It was getting warmer, Pallu noted as she picked berries along with the other women of the tribe. So warm, in fact, the new streams were forming from the water that giant masses of ice to the North wept, along with new lakes. She could see one nearby from the ridge she stood on. Through the tall, thick trucked trees, the stream ran strong. But not so strong that it was unsafe for the children to play in while their mothers picked. Pallu smiled as she watched Luki and Putsi attempt to catch tiny fish with their chubby toddler hands. Their elder sister, Ama watched them carefully, even as she braided her friend Nola's hair next to the stream.

Pallu felt envious of the women she picked with suddenly, and not for the first time. Pallu had lived many, many years. Since the days when the idea of the giant ice blocks melting was unthinkable, for it had been so cold and they had been so huge and formidable. But in those many years, Pallu had never had children of her own. She had watched generation after generation of the women of her people have sons and daughters, yet she had none, and not for a lack of trying.

Due to her perpetual state of youth and beauty, many men from many tribes had come to try and tame Pallu's heart. Pallu had found a number of them suitable. However, not one had given her a child. A long time ago, the human men had just given up. Pallu had been upset initially with her apparent barrenness, not understanding what she had done for the spirits to afflict her with such a curse.

But her fellow women had whispered comforting words in her ears and told her that perhaps the spirits had given her unfading youth and beauty and a life as long as the river that cut north to south through their land because they wanted for her to wait for someone very special to father her children, someone who wouldn't be born for a long time. Pallu wondered however when that special someone would be born then.

That thought and her childlessness had plagued Pallu very much lately. It seemed she had been waiting a thousand years for him. Would he ever arrive, she wondered.

Pallu felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder to see Hono smiling at her. Hono was Pallu's oldest friend and the oldest woman in the tribe at sixty summers. Pallu had known her since she was born and had been friends with her mother Migisi before her. Pallu had watched Hono play with the other children of the village once, had witnessed Uzu's courtship of her, had held Hono's own children Hinto and Molo when they were born, and had comforted Hono when Uzu died in a hunting accident years ago. Hono smiled at Pallu comfortingly.

"You're thinking about it again." Hono said in her aged voice. It was no question. Pallu looked away, down at the basket of blue berries in her arms. She felt Hono wrap an arm around her shoulders and give it a comforting rub.

"My friend, for years and years, you have helped guide our people. You have advised our leaders, overseen our struggles and triumphs, and have always looked after each and every one of us as if we were your own children. You are a blessing from the gods. In time, the gods will bless you as well with the child you so desire." Hono said. Pallu discreetly rolled her eyes and smiled wryly to herself. Sometimes it was hard to believe wild, naïve Hono had grown up into just a sagely old woman. If Migisi could see her now…

"How do you know?" Pallu asked, turning around to face Hono. The old woman faltered a moment.

"I…The gods would not just leave you un-thanked for your services." Hono reasoned.

Pallu knew better, however. She had lived many, many years. She had seen hundreds of thousands of her people—good people—go throughout their lives and never receive an ounce of gratitude for their deeds from their own tribesmen, let alone the spirits. Pallu looked to the sky with a frown and sighed. She wondered what she had ever done to deserve such cruelty from the spirits.

"Why do you even want a baby?" Wayna, Hono's granddaughter, suddenly interjected. "I don't see what's so great about being a mother. I would rather be medicine woman or a warrior like my father and brother." Hono gave Wayna a chastising glance over her shoulder, but Wayna was unperturbed, much to Hono's dismay. Pallu smirked at her friend, knowing well that Hono had been just as willful as her granddaughter when she had been her age.

"Babies are like the stakes we use to pitch our tents at night, and the mothers and grandmothers of the tribe are the furs and skins of our tents." Wayna said. "The babies weigh them down and keep them from blowing away in the breeze. But you and I are not staked down. We could fly away anytime we'd like. You or I could see the world, have an adventure, or do whatever we like. No baby or husband to hold us back." Wayna said wistfully, a huge grin on her dark face.

"But you want to fly away, Wayna, and I've had ten lifetimes over's worth of adventures." Pallu said dejectedly. "I have flown free like a bird or a blanket in the wind for long enough. I want to be a mother. _Now._"

"But _why_?" Wayna persisted. "Why, with a life as long as yours and so many other gifts from the spirits, when you could do or have so much, would you vhy for something like motherhood?" Wayna asked.

Pallu bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes, suddenly vividly remembering an icy wind that burned her cheeks and a world made of nothing but white and cold.

"Because I never had a mother myself, perhaps." Pallu said, and Hono and Wayna both looked at her with concern.

Pallu remembered her first day of life better than she did what she had eaten for dinner the night before.

She had opened her dark eyes to a frozen waste, barren of all life, and snow floating down from the dark clouds above. Some of the snowflakes whizzed every which way in the wind, while others drifted right to the ground, adding to the layers of snow and ice already there. The wind whistled in her ears and made her cheeks sting. She shivered and covered her ears with her hands. On chubby legs, she climbed to her feet.

She looked all around for a sign of life, but saw none. Slowly, a sense of dread and confusion crept up on her. A whimper slipped past her lips as she grew colder and colder. Tears slipped down her soft cheeks and froze there. She let out a cry and fell on her bottom onto the snow and ice. She hugged the fur around her, the only thing she had to keep herself warm, tightly to her chest. She had no idea where it had come from, but she didn't really care. All she knew was that she was alone and she was cold.

In the distance, snow crunched.

She turned her head slowly to look behind her. She saw nothing but more snow.

There was more crunching. It grew louder and louder, steady as a beating heart. She watched the horizon with baited breath.

Then it appeared.

Dark fur was the first thing she saw appear over the horizon. Slowly, a head followed with a long trunk for a nose and large, white tusks sticking out from its face that made her shiver in fear rather than from the cold. They looked sharp, even from a distance. Soon, the giant wooly beast's huge front feet appeared, slowly lumbering towards her.

Another beast appeared over the horizon, just as big if not bigger than the first.

Then another.

And another.

More and more appeared until it looked as if one huge mass of fur and tusks was heading her way.

She trembled at the sight, not knowing what to do. She shut her eyes tightly and huddled deeper in her pelt. She listened in fright as the giants slowly neared.

There was a cry suddenly. She opened her eyes and looked around. She heard crunching snow far too hurried to be made by the giants, who were still a fair bit away, though they crept closer and closer by the second. She looked around for the source of the crunching snow. Before she could locate it, she felt something wrap around her and her pelt and lift her up from the snow. She found herself pressed into another fur, much like her pelt. It was gray and brown fur. Within the furs, she felt warmth.

Unconsciously, she pressed closer to the furs and the being who wore them.

The thing that held her, she could not see its face, for it pressed her head into its shoulder as it ran. It panted heavily and moved quickly and didn't stop until she could no longer spy the giant furry beasts over the being's shoulder. When she stopped, the being set her on her feet and allowed her her first look at her apparent savior.

It was a woman with long black hair and a dark skin. She had lines around her eyes and mouth. She looked at her with shock and confusion.

"Who are you?" The woman breathed finally. She remained silent, unable to come up with a proper response. She didn't even know who she was, so how was she to answer.

The woman frowned. "Do you know where you came from?" Again, she gave no reply.

The woman looked over her shoulder and then back at her.

"You didn't…" The woman's eyes went wide. "The mother spirit must have…" The woman dropped to her knees before her and cradled her face in between her gloved hands. She looked at the woman with puzzlement.

"Who's the mother spirit?" She asked. The woman smiled then with half frozen tears in her dark eyes.

"The land, child…and your mother as well."

The woman, whose name had been Zara, had gone on to tell Pallu what she had witnessed just moments before rescuing her from the mammoths. She had been standing far, far away, lying in wait of the beasts that passed over the bridge of land along with her fellow tribesmen. They too had witnessed what Pallu would later come to identify as her birth.

It had happened suddenly, without warning. A patch of snow started to glow as bright as the sun. The wind that whipped around the patch of light as if in were the eye of a storm. From the patch of light, a little girl, no more than a few years old in appearance, materialized out of nothing but air and snow. With her, a single wolf pelt. No one had been able to believe their eyes and had watched her for several minutes, wondering if she was just some vision or perhaps real. It was only when the mammoths were close to trampling her to death that old woman Zara stepped in to save her, her years of motherly instinct kicking in.

Pallu would have liked to say Zara had ended up being a mother to her. In reality, Zara had passed within the year Pallu was born. Her old body just couldn't take the harshness of the north anymore, her tribesmen had said. Pallu would have liked to say that the tribe as a whole had been a parent to her. But they had treated her more like a goddess than a child. Even when she eventually left them to live with other tribes who had crossed the land bridge, every tribe she came across treated her more like a spirit than a person.

It was only by the time she grew to look like an adult, which had taken many, many years, that her people started treating her like one of their own rather than a sacred entity.

Pallu had never enjoyed a parents love.

However, that never stopped her from wanting to give it to another.

Pallu, for a long time, had been content to give her motherly love to her people as a whole. She still gave it to them without fail…but that didn't stop her from feeling jealous of the women of the tribes she lived with when one of them bore a new son or daughter, when they played with their toddlers by the fire at the end of the day, or when they snuggled with them in their tents at night.

Pallu wished that once…just once…she was the woman who the tribe congratulated on her pregnancy, who played with her baby by the firelight after dinner, who cuddled with her son or daughter under their furs at night, whispering lullabies in their ear.

Pallu wanted that.

She wanted it so much it hurt.

Hono tucked a strand of raven hair behind Pallu's ear.

"In time, your wish will be granted." She said, smiling sadly. "Just be patient."

Pallu nodded, though she remained unconvinced.

When Hono and Wayna turned away from her and went back to their picking, Pallu looked to the sky once more.

"Where are you?" She wondered aloud. Where was the man who would finally give her a child?

She felt a tap at the side of her head and heard something very light fall to the ground. Pallu looked down to see a berry at her feet. "What the—?"

"Hey, Pallu!" Wayna and her sister Meesha called in unison. Pallu looked up just in time to feel several berries collide with her face and smash, leaving behind sticky juice.

Pallu glared at the two girls who laughed before a catlike grin spread across her face.

"Oh~, you want to play, do you?" Pallu grabbed a handful of berries from her basket and tossed them lightly in her hand, giving the girls a challenging stare. Their laughter died and they grew pale. "Fine." Pallu said. "We'll play."

Both girls let out a screech as Pallu hurled her berries.

* * *

It was several weeks later, as the tribe trekked east towards the great river that cut the land north to south, that Pallu felt something she had never felt before.

She stopped and stared off to the east across miles and miles of forest. She could see the river from the ridge she and the tribe were climbing. Kawaseh gently grabbed her arm and gave her a shake.

Dazed, she looked over at him. He gave her a raised eyebrow.

"You alright, Pallu?"

Hesitantly, Pallu nodded.

"Yes, I just…over…" She trailed off as she once again stared to the east. Kawaseh gave her another jerk. She shook herself then and turned away stubbornly from the east.

"T-Thank you, I…" She shivered. The strange feeling she sensed from the east remained with her still. "I have this odd feeling."

Kawaseh gave the east a wary look. "Perhaps we should steer to the north instead then."

"No!" Pallu protested. She flushed embarrassedly at the look she got from Kawaseh. "I mean, don't mind me!" She laughed nervously. "It's just a feeling! It's nothing!"

Kawaseh continued to give her a weird look, but nodded and continued on with the rest of the tribe without another word. Pallu gave the east one more curious glance over her shoulder before following after him.

* * *

They arrived at the great river's banks a week later. In that week, the strange feeling Pallu felt grew stronger and stronger. The tribe began to whisper about the longing looks she gave the east.

"What's in the east?" Wayna asked her one night as they started the fire for that night's dinner. The tribe had caught many fish that day. Tonight would be a feast.

"I don't know…" Pallu replied in a mumbled voice uncomfortably. She felt her cheeks heat up. She felt like a fool for all that staring she did at the east. Not even she knew what was there that drew her. Sometimes, when she caught herself staring, she'd flush deep red and curse the damned feeling she kept getting from that direction. Even she found it incredibly odd. Having her people notice her peculiar behavior made the whole ordeal even more embarrassing.

"Oh come on, tell me!" Wayna protested.

"I don't know. Honest!" Pallu replied, feeling her face grow even redder.

"You must know!"

"I don't!"

"Then why do you stare? And don't just say you don't know!" Wayna said. Pallu had no answer besides "I don't know", so she instead picked up a fish from a nearby basket and thwacked Wayna with it on the back on the head. Wayna gaped at her for it.

"How about you mind your own business!" Pallu shouted, and then she stomped off further down river, away from the tribe.

* * *

She sat in the dirt by the river until the moon appeared in the sky. Pallu debated going back, but she still felt too embarrassed. The fact she had smacked one of her people with a fish made it even worse. What had she been thinking, she wondered. She covered her face with her hands and let out a high-pitched, embarrassed scream that her hands and sleeves thankfully muffled.

"So humiliating!" She shouted, her cheeks turning red.

Suddenly, the strange feeling became stronger. Pallu looked to the east instinctively, across the river. In the darkness, she saw nothing. She heard nothing either, except for the river flowing. But the stranger feeling grew stronger and stronger by the passing minute.

Pallu felt her heart speed up. Her breathing became labored. Abruptly, she was very afraid and very excited all at once, something she hadn't felt like since her first hunts with her people. She debated running back to camp and standing her ground.

It was getting closer and closer. She could feel it. It was just across the river. In the darkness, she felt something looking at her and she looked right back at it, she was sure. She saw nothing but darkness and the moonlight reflecting off the river waters, but she knew she was looking right at the thing that gave her that strange feeling.

Pallu wished she could see it so badly. She had to, she decided.

That night, Pallu sat by the river, staring into the darkness, at the thing she felt, waiting for morning's first light to reveal its identity. The thing she felt waited as well, seemingly, and did not move once in the night, just like her.

Pallu was on the brink of dozing when the first rays of sun shone over the horizon. As the sky grew lighter and lighter, Pallu forced herself to focus on the shadows that the thing she felt resided in across the river. She waited for it to come to light along with everything else.

First, she saw the silhouette of a person.

Then, she witnessed the sun shine on his dark brown hair and his furs.

Finally, her black eyes locked with his brown ones.

Understanding seemed to pass between them the moment she could see his eyes and he could see hers.

He was like her, Pallu realized. The thought made her cheeks flush red.

* * *

**A/N: Here it is! **

**So the concept of this is based on the Solutrean Theory. **

**Which is basically, while some of the ancestors of the Native Americans certainly came from Siberia across the land bridge, some also came across the Atlantic via the ice from what is now Southern France, Spain, and Portugal. **

**So the dude Pallu just met is basically France, Spain, and Portugal's great uncle or something. **

**The story takes place roughly towards the end of the ice age, when the land bridge started to get covered by the sea again and the glaciers started melting, stranding these ancient Paleo Indians/Paleoamericans in the Americas for the next thousand years to develop separately from their distant relatives in Euroasia, Oceania, and Africa. **

**The great river Pallu refers to is the Mississippi River. **

**Tell me what you think of Pallu, and what you might like to see in the Solutrean nation. I'm open to ideas, for which you would of course get credit. **

**In the mean time, please review, follow, and favorite!**

**Thanks for reading! **


	9. Pallu of Paleoamerica Part 2

Axis Powers: Hetalia

Mothers

Disclaimer: I Own Nothing.

Summary: The Mothers of the nations.

Chapter 9: Pallu of Paleoamerica Part 2

* * *

Even as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, his face was hard to make out across the river. Pallu had to squint her eyes a bit to see his face better. He had lighter skin than hers. His hair was dark brown like wet dirt rather than black as night like hers. His eyes were dark, she could see. Pallu couldn't tell however if they were black or brown. He wore thick furs like her and on his back there was a bow and quiver of arrows. Pallu wondered if he was a warrior. The thought made her flush girlishly, and she shook herself in embarrassment.

What was she thinking? She had not even spoken to this stranger yet. This was no time for childish fantasies. Pallu decided that it was time to perhaps try and speak to the stranger, perhaps get him to cross the river, or maybe shout his name.

"Hello!" She shouted across the river as loudly as she could. She waved as well at the stranger.

He did not even flinch. Pallu frowned.

"What tribe do you come from?" She shouted next. Again, the stranger did not react.

Pallu frowned deeply and bit her bottom lip worriedly. Was she not being loud enough? A horrible thought struck her. Did he not understand her language? She knew that many of her people has of late had been speaking differently from each other. She never personally had trouble understand them or learning to speak their new languages, but perhaps the strangers, despite being the same as her, did not share that ability with her.

Pallu fidgeted a moment and looked around for another form in which to communicate. She felt her face heat up embarrassedly, feeling the stranger staring at her across the river as she looked around in growing panic. She was making a lousy first impression, she just knew it!

Pallu debated heading back to the camp. Perhaps she could get some advice from Hono or one of the other tribesmen. But what if the stranger left, thinking she was gone forever, she wondered worriedly. Pallu looked between the direction camp was in and the stranger across the river.

Warily, she took a few steps in the direction of the camp.

No, no, no! She thought suddenly, taking several steps backwards, shaking her head.

What if he left!? That was not a risk she was willing to take!

Pallu looked across the river at the stranger. He was staring straight at her. Pallu felt her cheeks burn and she looked away. "Perhaps I should just try again. Maybe he just didn't here me." Pallu whispered to herself.

She turned back to the stranger and cleared her throat. "HELLO!" She screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify the sound. The stranger did not respond save for one gesture. He cupped a hand to his ear and leant towards her. His lips moved, but Pallu didn't hear anything but a mummer thanks to the river. Pallu glared at the water for its interference.

Lifting her furs above her knees, Pallu stepped into the water and walked forward. Each step was hesitant and careful. The mud and stone under her feet was slippery and Pallu feared slipping. She stopped when she was knee deep.

Looking up from her feet, Pallu shouted at the stranger, "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!?" The stranger's only response was to look at her with a tilt of his head. Pallu sighed and took yet another step forward. The water came to her breasts with that one steps alone. Pallu looked nervously down at the water and then up at the stranger. He took a few steps forward, until his feet were touching the water's edge. Pallu wasn't sure, but she thought he might have been worried about her. Pallu considered heading back the river banks, but her desire for the stranger to hear her had now grown to strong. She couldn't just turn back now. She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted. "CAN YOU HEAR ME _NOW_!?"

The stranger's mouth moved, but Pallu couldn't hear what he said. All she heard was a full mummer in the distance. If she were just a bit closer…Pallu slowly began to move forward once again. Two steps forward, her foot landed on something slippery and slipped right now from under her. Pallu lost her footing on the river bed and the current picked her up like she was nothing but a piece of drift wood. Pallu screamed as the river began to carry her down stream.

Struggling against the current to regain her footing and get back to shore, Pallu only caught a glimpse of the stranger before the current started pulling her under. He was quickly removing his quiver and bow from his back. That was all Pallu saw before she went under the first time.

Under the water's surface, it was a dark, grayish green. She saw little bits of dirt and greenery and driftwood. It was cold as well. She felt the water seep through her furs along with river sludge like mud and algae. Pallu tasted some of it as it came through her nose and pressed past her puckered lips. When she rose to the surface, she coughed and hacked.

She looked around. She wasn't too far down river yet, she realized quickly, but she was farther away from shore. Futilely, she attempted to swim to shore, but she couldn't fight the current. She had never been a strong swimmer.

Suddenly, she felt something wrap around her waist. Panicked, Pallu looked around. She felt a weight on her shoulder and looked to see a mop of wet hair from the corner of her eye. She looked down, and through the water, she could just make out an arm around her waist. She felt her body being pulled to the closest side of the river; the side the stranger had been on.

Before she knew it, her feet were on solid land again, though in truth her bedraggled body was supported by the stranger's arms around her waist and shoulders. He lowered her to lie on the river banks. Pallu looked up at him in a daze and saw him up close for the first time. Even when wet, his dark brown hair was messy and sort of spiky almost, and it was longish and his bangs fell in his face. His eyes were a soft brown color that reminded Pallu of the nuts she collected with the women along with the berries. He has a lazy expression with a small, wry smile.

"Hello," He greeted her quietly. Pallu felt her cheeks go red.

"Hello," She croaked.

* * *

Neither of them knew a safe way to cross the river, so instead, the stranger offered to take her back to his people's camp to warm up by the fire and eat. As they trekked through the forest, towards the camp, Pallu couldn't help but ask him all the questions that had been bugging her since the sun first rose. Mainly, his name…

"My name is Pallu," She started off simply when they first began their short journey from the river bank. "What's yours?" She asked. The stranger smiled that lazy, crooked smile of his that Pallu personally thought looked too much like a smirk. "Chak." He replied quietly and simply. "Oh, well, that's nice." Pallu said. "Is it…is it short for anything?" She asked. "Achak." He answered. "That's nice too." Pallu said. She bit her lip, waiting for him to say something. That was how conversations worked after all.

Several minutes passed in silence, and Pallu's spirits slowly fell. She began twiddling with her fingers and looking down at her feet as she walked. Perhaps Chak didn't want to talk to her, she thought dismally. A breeze swept through the woods, shaking tree branches, blowing leaves, and whistling a tune. Pallu shivered violently as the wind blew seemingly right through her, chilling her to the bone for a brief moment. Chak stopped suddenly in the animal path they had been walking along and turned to her. His lazy expression remained, but his brown eyes were tinted with worry and his lazy, crooked smile had fallen into a frown. He reached out to her and brushed some of her wet hair away from her forehead. He looked her up and down.

"We need to get you into some dry clothes soon." He said quietly. Chak looked around and then pointed at a large tree with a thick middle. He looked at her, his lazy, crooked smile back on his face and said, "Go take your clothes off." Pallu felt her eyes go wide and her face go red. She gaped at Chak like a freshly caught fish. Chak remained blissfully unfettered by the look on her face. He pointed casually to his poncho of animal furs. It came down past his waist and to his wrists. "You can wear this until we get to the village, and I can carry you on my back so your feet don't touch the ground." He said. Pallu felt her flush subside some. He said it so innocently, it was unnerving however.

"Okay…I'll…go do that…" Pallu stammered, slowly approaching the indicated tree. She took off all her clothes and when she was done, shouted so to Chak. He threw his poncho behind the tree. She threw it over her head. It came down to her knees and past her hands. Her damp legs were cold, but she felt better now that she was out of her sobbing wet furs. She picked up the furs and walked out from behind the tree to see Chak leaning against another tree. His bow and quiver were at his feet and he was gazing dreamily up at the forest canopy. He had a faraway look in his lazy eyes.

Pallu cleared her throat. Chak looked at her and smiled softly. "I'll carry the furs. You put my bow and quiver on your back and I'll carry you." Pallu eyed him dubiously. "Will you really be able to carry that much weight?" She asked. Chak smiled. "I'm sure. I've always been told that I'm as sturdy as a mountain. Ever since I was a little boy." He held out his arms. "Just hand me the furs and climb on." Pallu gave Chak her furs and slipped his bow and quiver onto her own back. Chak crouched down and tentatively, Pallu climbed on and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. With no obvious effort, Chak stood and started walking the path again. Pallu looked at him with awe. He was strong, she thought, and her cheeks burned. A girlish giggle slipped past her lips.

Pallu flushed in embarrassment, hoping Chak hadn't heard. She had just met him, she chastised herself. She didn't even know that much about him besides his name and…well, that was about all she knew. That and he was strong. Pallu looked down at Chak as he whistled a tune as he walked.

"Are you like me?" She blurted out. Chak's eyes flicked from the path up to her. Pallu suppressed her blush and continued. "You…I don't know why, but I think you're like me." She said.

"I feel the same." Chak said with a nod. "I felt you. All the way from the mountains to the east." He said. Pallu looked at him with pleasant surprise.

"Me too!" She exclaimed. But then she blinked at Chak confusedly. "Mountains to the East…?" She whispered. She had never seen any mountains to the East…but then again, she had never really crossed the great river.

Her people never crossed it; they only fished from the great river before moving back out west to take refuge in the hills and cliffs to the south west for the winter. It was warmed farther south. Pallu had once gone so far south, that the land became lush and colorful and hot. She hadn't needed to wear warm furs down there. Not until she got to the farthest southern point of the land. There is got colder again some. After her adventure in the south, Pallu had returned to the north. She had never explored the East, however. The river was too wide to cross safely unless you were willing to risk the swim or had a good boat. However, Pallu had never been a strong swimmer, nor had she wanted to risk falling from a boat into the strong current. Father to the north, though the river became narrower, but the ice still loomed ominously and blocked their way. Pallu had never dared to climb or cross the ice.

Chak nodded his head. "Yes, the mountains. My people and I were climbing through them to get here to fish. Along the way, I got this feeling I had never felt before and I was drawn here. For weeks I would just stare in this direction, feeling it, wanting to get closer. When I saw you, I knew you were the source of that feeling. I knew you were like me." He said. Pallu could hear a smile in his voice. A genuine, happy once; not a lazy, half-smirk. She wished she could see it as well as hear it.

"What do you suppose we are?" Chak questioned. Pallu had to stop and think for a moment.

"My people always thought I was some spirit or…something sent to guide and protect them from the gods." Pallu answered. Chak nodded almost sadly.

"Mine have always said pretty much the same thing." He sighed. "I always hated it."

"Me too." Pallu whispered, and suddenly she felt very close to Chak. "I never wanted to be a spirit, or a guardian, or a gift from the gods. I just... I wanted to sit by the firelight at night with them and trade stories and not sit as a guest of honor by the chief. I didn't want to have offerings set at my feet during rituals. I didn't want to be something people fought over in countless battles like some goddess. I wanted to be them. I wanted to be…be…" Pallu couldn't finish her sentence. She didn't know how to describe what she wanted.

"You wanted to bring them together." Chak said. "You wanted to be that thing that they could all share and be proud of. That force that created kinship even between the bitterest rivals and worst enemies. You wanted to see them all move forward together, as a single family almost. You wanted to be them, as a whole. Just like me."

Pallu didn't know what to say, because Chak was completely right. So she didn't say anything at all, and instead smiled to herself quietly, happy to finally have found someone who understood.

* * *

Chak's people were just taking down camp when they arrived. Pallu was relieved that they hadn't put the fire out yet. Her feet were very cold. All of Chak's people stared at her when he set her on her feet. Pallu thought that there were about as many of them as there were her own people at their camp across the river. They didn't look as different as she expected either. They had different skin and hair, with some varying styles of jewelry and clothes, but they weren't as completely alien as she first imagined. Still, all their stared made her blush.

Pallu exchanged Chak's bow and quiver for her wet furs quickly. Chak then placed a hand on her back and gently guided her forward. The tribe parted as they walked towards one old man and woman sitting by the fire. The man was very old, his hair completely white. His face was like beaten leather. The woman was younger and resembled him some. Pallu surmised she was his daughter. The man looked up from the arrowhead in his hands and gave Pallu a curious look. He then looked at Chak and said something in a language Pallu couldn't understand. Chak answered him in the same language, yet Pallu understood him just fine.

"She's one of my kind, Lushka. She's the one I have been feeling." Chak explained. The old man, Lushka, looked Pallu up and down warily. He said something that sounded vaguely like an insult. Pallu puckered her lips with displeasure. Her suspicions were partially confirmed by the chastising look Lushka gave her father and the apologetic one she gave Pallu. Pallu hugged her wet furs closer to her chest as she felt her cheeks heat up with anger and embarrassment. She had been in Chak's people's camp a minute and already she was off to bad start, she thought grumpily.

"She fell in the river. I couldn't let her walk her in wet furs." Chak said patiently. Lushka grumbled something in reply. "I know she's like me because I know, Lushka. Trust me." Chak chuckled. "Have I ever led you astray?" He asked as if alluding to some old, inside joke. Lushka's stern old face softened as he smiled up at Chak then, his old eyes twinkling. He laughed throatily and whispered something to his daughter. She helped him to his feet. Lushka said something more to Chak, who glanced over at her and then answered, "I trust her, yes." Lushka nodded.

In a voice stronger than Pallu thought the old man capable of, Lushka shouted something to the tribe. Pallu looked around confusedly as the tribe began to look at her in awe rather than confusion. She looked over at Chak for guidance, but he was frowning sadly.

"Lushka just announced that the gods had blessed us with yet another great guardian. Someone to bring us to new friends. A gift from the gods." He said. Pallu sighed sadly.

She smiled some when she felt Chak grasp her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.

* * *

They came to the river some hours later, just across from where Pallu's people were camped out and fishing. When her people saw Chak's people, men and women rushed from the water and parents wrangled their children quickly to their sides worriedly. Weapons were drawn and wary scowls were cast across the river.

Seeing this, Lushka, who led Chak's people, gestured for her to step forward and greet her tribesmen. Clad in fresh furs courtesy of Lushka's daughter Izu's quick fingers and skill with a needle and leather thread, Pallu stepped forward tentatively. She shouted across the river, as loudly as she could, "IT'S ME, PALLU!" And like that, everyone seemed to relax some. Though not completely. "THESE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDS!" Pallu continued. "THEY HAVE BOATS TOO! WE'RE GOING TO CROSS!" Nervously, Pallu's people looked between each other and then at the chief. Solemnly, the chief nodded his head, and with that, Pallu's people seemingly accepted the idea.

Pallu looked over at Chak. Chak nodded and said something to Lushka, who nodded his head. The boats were carried forward to the water's edge and boat by boat, Chak's people began to cross. Pallu and Chak were on the second boat across the river, right after Lushka and his eldest son's boat departed from the river's banks.

Pallu's people greeted Chak's warily, but with smiles nonetheless. Pallu's tribe's chief met Lushka with a firm handshake, and both men stepped aside to speak while their people awkwardly became acquainted with one another. It was in the uncomfortable mess of it all that Pallu found Hono and Wayna.

Wayna was in awe of the strangers and looked eager to talk to them, but Hono held the girl's arm tightly as she looked between Pallu and Chak worriedly.

"Where did you…" Hono started at first. She eyed Chak suspiciously. Chak was unperturbed. "Who is he?" Hono asked, her mouth set in that grim line that Pallu was sure only disapproving old people were capable of making with their lips.

"This is Chak, Hono." Pallu said. "He's…" Pallu couldn't help her wide smile or her pink cheeks. "He's like me!" Hono's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. Then she smiled triumphantly and gave Pallu's arm a slap.

"See! I told you the gods would reward you!"

* * *

That night, Pallu's tribe played host to Chak's tribe and supplied a meager feast with the fish they had caught that day before Chak's people had arrived. Pallu and Chak sat as guests of honor next to their respective chiefs. The affair was quiet, all except for the children, who had all quickly befriended each other. The adults, however, were for distrustful one of another still to Pallu's dismay. Only those who had grown past the age of fearing their fellow man bothered to speak to one another at the feast, while those between childhood and old age kept to themselves or only spoke to those from their own tribe.

After the feast, Lushka and Pallu's chief, Hanu, adjourned Hanu's tent. Later that night, as she dozed to sleep between Hono and a little boy who snored very loudly, Pallu swore she heard Lushka stomp out of Hanu's tent angrily and into one of the tents his own tribesmen were staying in.

* * *

"Did…Did Lushka and Hanu argue last night, Chak?" Pallu asked the next morning. She found him sitting by one of his tribe's fires, creating a new hunting knife out of flints. He looked up from his works and gave a sort of half-hearted shrug before going back to his work. "I wouldn't know. I went to bed before you did, so…But even if they did, it was probably over something stupid." Chak gave a dismissive hand wave and gave her one of his lazy, half-smirks. "It's nothing to worry about."

Pallu shifted uneasily, foot to foot, however. She was not comforted. "But what if…" She didn't really want to say it. Chak stood up, his new hunting knife in hand, the handle freshly wrapped. He reached out and ruffled her hair. "I promise, Pallu. Lushka won't do anything to ruin our friendship when it's only just begun." He said.

Pallu felt her cheeks heat up and she pushed away his hand, embarrassed. "I'm not a little girl, Chak." She protested with a pout. Chak laughed and ruffled her hair one last time before she even got a chance to push his hand away. "Of course, you're not." He said. "You're a beautiful young woman." Pallu felt her face heat up even more and she refused to look at him.

"Come," He said, pulling gently at her hand. "Come walk with me for a bit. Most of the men of my tribe are off hunting with the men of yours right now. They left at dawn's first light, before I awoke. I wouldn't be able to catch up with them, so let's just go exploring on our own." Chak said, starting to walk towards the forest. Pallu looked over her shoulder at the women of her tribe who were fishing in the river with some of Chak's people. She should really be helping them, she thought. After all, she had been gone all yesterday.

"I don't think we should. What about our people?"

"The women of my tribe can help, and the men who stayed behind from the hunt as well." Chak said. He gave her a pleading look. "Please? I really want to see your side of the river." He said.

"Lushka and Hanu, though…" Pallu protested weakly. Exploring with Chak really did sound more fun than fishing. Besides, after yesterday, she was pretty sure she never wanted to set foot in the great river again.

"Lushka is content to sit by the fire all day and warm his old bones, and would Hanu really mind?" Chak asked. Pallu shook her head. Hanu probably wouldn't. He had better things to worry about than her going off. After all, he knew of her nature, that any day she could leave their tribe for another one of her people's tribes and not return to theirs for six generations.

"Okay, okay," Pallu conceded. "Let's go." Chak smiled and took her hand. Hurriedly almost, he led her into the forest.

* * *

They walked for several hours through the woods. They picked some berries from some bushes they passed. Chak was curious about them, saying that he had never seen such berries before in his long life. Pallu showed him which were poisonous and which tasted the best and which were good for upset stomachs or making medicines. He particularly like the little red berries she showed him and ate them by the handful until the bush they were ravaging was barren. His right hand was left coated in red and sticky.

They followed the tracks of a wild animal back to its den. There, they saw it and its litter heading out for the day. "They're so cute!" Pallu whispered excitedly upon seeing the furry little critters. "Would you like me to steal you one?" Chak asked jokingly, pointing a particularly small member of the litter who was lagging behind. Pallu gasped and shook her head. "I could never separate a baby from its mother!" She protested. "If I did, how could I expect for the gods to…" She shut her mouth quickly, feeling her cheeks burn red. "For the gods to what?" Chak asked curiously. Pallu shook her head. "Nothing. Just nothing." She said.

She had known Chak less than two days. She thought it perhaps too soon to share her life's dream with him…

Chak shrugged off her lack of response. They moved on after the mother and the litter left the area. They found an animal path that led to a small watering hole nearby. There, Pallu crouched to the ground and greedily began to drink. Meanwhile, Chak looked to the sky, specifically at the sun. Pallu wiped her mouth and said to him, "Midday." Chak looked at her with surprise. "Wha?" He asked. Pallu smiled. "You were looking for the time, right? It's midday." She said. Chak looked between her and the sun. "Yes…Yes, I suppose it is." He said. He gave Pallu his usual lazy, half-smirk.

For the first time, it seemed forced and unconvincing.

"Are there any fish in that watering hole? I'm getting sort of hungry." He said.

Pallu gave him a long, lingering apprehensive look before turning back to the watering hole and examining the water, searching for signs of life.

She heard leaves on the forest floor crunch under Chak's weight behind her as he approached. He moved too fast for it to be casual. Before she could turn around, she felt his new flint blade pressed to the veins in her throat and felt his warm breath in her ear.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, show of hands, who thinks Chak is an asshole? No, but seriously, I really debated whether to end this chapter like this. I think it's a risk, but I hope you like it and look forward to the next chapter. **

**As per the request of Wednesday101, the next arc will focus on Kievan Rus. **

**In other news, Pallu's arc will be the first arc where the story lasts four chapters.**

**I would really, really appreciate some feedback on these Ocs, guys! Please review! I want to know what you guys think of the mothers!**

**Thank you guys for reading!**

**Please review and follow! **

**Edit:**

**To Guest: No, Chak is not Ancient Latin America. I...really don't know where you go that idea, because I explained in the Author's Note in the previous chapter that his character comes from the Solutrean theory. So, no, Chak is not latino. **

**Or wait, were you suggesting a character? I don't know honestly. **

**To Bewbs Ahoy: Kievan Rus is the popular name for Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine's mother based on the fact that culture existed in what is now Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Not just Ukraine. As far as I know, Ukraine being Kievan Rus is not Hetalia canon and not historically accurate because that's leaving out Belarus and Russia, who also claim cultural inheritance from Kievan Rus along with Ukraine. If you think Ukraine was Kievan Rus and that's your headcanon, okay, but here I am operating off the popular headcanon that Kievan Rus was Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus' mother. Thank you for your words of advice however. **


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